Is there any evidence of actual parental care in non-avian maniraptorans? I think that altriciality is a derived feature of crown-group birds, and may be why they aren't extinct. Picrel top: an enantiornithean stem-bird hatchling from Burmese amber, with flight feathers, and it was a hatchling https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gr.2017.06.001 Picrel bottom: megapode hatchlings, fowl that are secondarily superprecocial and lay eggs in mounds of rotting mulch.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbxpmCp5Mm8Were non-avian maniraptorans similar to modern megapodes? See videohttps://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/G104/lectures/104babies.html>In primitive modern birds it is the male rather than the female which broods the nest: paternal care. These nests are laid by multiple females. In these paternal care cases, the male rather than the female typically watches over the young after they hatch. When plotted against body size, the volume of eggs of nests of dromaeosaurids, troodontids, and oviraptorosaurs more closely resembles the pattern seen in paternal caring birds than in maternal caring or biparental caring birds; .... And indeed the statistics supporting the paternal care hypothesis in non-avian pennaraptorans has been called into question. Literally megapodes If you check the wiki page for Deionychus it mentions this http://dx.doi.org/10.3374/0079-032X(2007)48[103:AROCPH]2.0.CO;2 >it appears that what is found is consistent with Deinonychus having a Komodo or crocodile-like feeding strategy. Deinonychus skeletal remains found at these sites are from subadults, with missing parts consistent with having been eaten by other Deinonychus.>The highly disarticulated and incomplete condition of OMNH 50268, which, as evidenced by the presence of a shed D. antirrhopus tooth, was probably cannibalized (see Figure 3; Brinkman et al. 1998), could indicate that the carcass of OMNH 50268 was fed on more extensively than those of the nearby tenontosaurs.
>>5119408Is mammal-like dromaeosaurid pack-hunting also bullshit?https://sci-hub.red/10.3374/0079-032X(2007)48[103:AROCPH]2.0.CO;2The Roach, Brinkman 2007 paper on deionychosaur cannibalism mentions that no extant archosaurs are true pack-hunters. At best birds of prey and crocodilians will be commensal and somewhat cooperative when prey is plentiful in order to flush it out or get control over a carcass if scavenging. https://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/G104/lectures/104size.html>When we watch nature specials on TV that focus on large charismatic modern land mammals, we get the impression that the simple food chain of plant large herbivore large carnivore (e.g., grass zebra lion) is typical. In fact, while it does apply to the world of Cenozoic hoofed mammals and their predators, it actually is not the case for most terrestrial life. As in the marine realm, most terrestrial food chains have many steps from primary productivity to apex carnivore, often through insects and other herbivorous invertebrates, to carnivorous arthropods, to small-bodied insectivorous animals, to predators of those, and so on. (For example, plants aphids ants spiders or mantids small insectivorous birds snakes hawks). And of course there is loss of energy every step up the food pyramid.Were Mesozoic ecosystems with multi-tonne primary consumers running around just the ideal environment for a creature like a crocodile, a vulture, a falcon or a komodo dragon to benefit from commensal feeding behaviour?
