alanf@tekig6.PEN.TEK.COM (Alan M Feuerbacher) Many creationists believe that animals lived

alanf@tekig6.PEN.TEK.COM (Alan M Feuerbacher)
<10336@tekig7.pen.tek.com>

   Many creationists believe that animals lived at peace
with one another before "Adam and Eve's fall into sin." But
there is clear fossil evidence that this is not true.  As
far back as the geological record of macroscopic life goes
there have been predators.  Here is just one example.

   Direct evidence for predation can be seen in a photo on
page 69 of the June 7, 1993 _U.S. News & World Report_.  The
caption reads:

   A Deadly Embrace.  This prehistoric Protoceratops was
   fossilized as it battled to the death with the most
   fearsome predator in dinosaur times: a pack-hunting
   carnivore called a Velociraptor.

   Here is more history related to this find.  According to
_National Geographic,_ in 1964, John H. Ostrom of Yale Uni-
versity's Peabody Museum of Natural History discovered an
unusual fossil in Montana badlands,

   .... a small, totally new kind of dinosaur more than a
   hundred million years old.  And the creature's fos-
   silized remains offered astounding clues to its life
   and habits.  One such clue prompted the scientific
   name I later gave this peculiar beast:  _Deinonychus,_
   which means "terrible claw."....  _Deinonychus_'s
   sharp, serrated teeth revealed that it had been a car-
   nivore, and its skeletal structure indicated it
   belonged to the suborder of dinosaurs known as the
   Theropoda (meaning "beast foot").  Included among the
   theropods is perhaps the best known of all dinosaurs
   -- the giant, fearsome _Tyrannosaurus_ ("tyrant
   lizard"), which also stalked its prey across Montana,
   but some fifty million years after _Deinonychus...._
   Compared to _Tyrannosaurus,_ _Deinonychus_ was a
   lightweight: 150 to 175 pounds, eight or nine feet
   from snout to tail tip, and standing only four to five
   feet high.  Like all other theropods, _Deinonychus_
   stood, walked, and ran on its hind legs like a large
   bird.... [The find] was evidence of a dinosaur very
   unlike the stereotyped picture of the slow-moving
   coldblooded reptiles.  If anything, it was more like
   an oversize roadrunner.

   But the striking feature of _Deinonychus_ -- and the
   reason for its name -- was on its feet.  All previ-
   ously known theropods had birdlike feet, but _Deinony-
   chus_ also had a huge, sicklelike bone more than three
   inches long on one toe of each foot.  In life, sharp,
   curved, nail-like sheaths covered these claw bones and
   must have been four or five inches long.  Obviously
   they served as weapons -- most probably to kill
   prey.... The arms and hands of _Deinonychus_ were
   another surprise.  The long hands bore sharp claws
   designed for grasping.  The wrist joints enabled the
   hands to turn toward each other, permitting precise
   grasping of prey by both hands working together --
   something only man and certain other mammals can do.
   _Deinonychus_ almost certainly was a swift-footed
   predator that ran down its prey, seized it in its pow-
   erful hands, and then slashed at the belly and flanks
   of its victim with those razor-sharp talons.

   .... I was especially gratified to find my hypothe-
   sized killing techniques -- those slashing kicks of
   the foot talons at the belly of its victims -- con-
   firmed by colleagues halfway round the world.  A team
   of paleontologists led by Dr. Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska
   of the Institute of Paleobiology in Warsaw, Poland,
   made an incredible discovery in Mongolia's Gobi Desert
   in 1971.  Her expedition, jointly sponsored by the
   Polish and Mongolian Academies of Sciences, uncovered
   the skeletons of two dinosaurs tangled together.  One
   was the fairly well-known _Protoceratops,_ a calf-size
   plant eater with a turtlelike beak.  The other was a
   rare, two-legged, near-man-size carnivore -- _Veloci-
   raptor_ ("swift robber").

   These two animals had apparently killed each other,
   and their skeletons had been buried and preserved
   exactly as they died.  _Velociraptor,_ like _Deinony-
   chus,_ had a large sicklelike talon on each hind foot,
   and it died with one of those foot claws embedded in
   the belly of _Protoceratops_ -- an amazing life-and-
   death drama from 80 million years ago! [John H. Ostrom,
   "A New Look At Dinosaurs," _National Geographic
   Magazine_, pp. 152-185, August, 1978]

   Another article said with regard to the conclusion the
above mentioned theropod dinosaurs were predaceous:

   That conclusion has been dramatically verified by the
   discovery in 1971 (Kielan-Jaworowska and Barsbold,
   1972) of a specimen of _Velociraptor mongoliensis_
   that died in the act of killing a small _Protoceratops
   andrewsi._  The specimens are preserved with the hands
   of _Velociraptor_ clutching the skull of _Protocer-
   atops._ [John H. Ostrom, "Archaeopteryx and the Origin
   of Flight," _The Quarterly Review of Biology_, vol. 49,
   No. 1, p. 39, March 1974]

   This evidence dramatically shows the creationist con-
tention that animals originally ate only vegetation and
lived in peace with one another is wrong.

Alan Feuerbacher
alanf@atlas.pen.tek.com