In addition to wolves, tigers "cannot tolerate two tigers in one mountain", and lions patrol their territories every day, so carnivores usually have a strong sense of territory. In addition to carnivores, many herbivores are also territorial. For example, hippopotamus is a herbivore that will attack all animals that enter its territory (except elephants), including the "water overlord" crocodile.
Of course, it is not just hippos that are territorial. Herbivores such as zebras , wild ass , and buffaloes all have a strong sense of territory. However, these animals are all things we can observe. As an extinct animal, do dinosaurs have territorial awareness? This also starts with from the essence of territorial awareness.
Why do animals have territorial awareness?
Territorial awareness simply means the behavior of guarding one's own area of activity to prevent other animals from entering. This behavior is actually caused by the pressure of survival, and the survival pressure comes from competition and the need for food .
Competition is well understood. When animals survive in a region, there will always be animals that are close to their own feeding habits and ecological niches, so competition arises. For example, the conflict between lions and hyenas comes from competition and mutual restraint. On the one hand, it can give itself an advantage in the competition, and on the other hand, it can control the number of the other party.
The same is true for herbivores. Although they eat the plants that are easiest to obtain and are very abundant, once other herbivores appear in the habitat of an animal, competition will inevitably occur with it.
The demand for food is also very simple. In a fixed space, both prey and plants are limited. At this time, the more demand for food, the faster the resources in the space are consumed. This is obviously something animals do not want to see. Therefore, out of competition and food, most animals are territorial.
Of course, there are exceptions. For example, animals like giraffes are tall and do not have any competition or food relationships with other herbivores. Therefore, they can tolerate a variety of herbivores appearing in their areas to feed.
Therefore, territorial awareness is often the more crowded the space, the more obvious the behavior of the animals in the space, the greater the demand for food, the more obvious .
Are dinosaurs territorial?
Dinosaurs are animals that have ruled the earth for more than 160 million years. At that time, they occupied a favorable ecological niche on the earth with their huge size and large population. Other animals could only "survive in the cracks", such as primitive mammals, which were about the same size as mice and lived an omnivorous and insectivore life in the trees to reduce the direct dialogue with dinosaurs. Finally, after the extinction of dinosaurs , they were able to spread their branches.
From this perspective, the space in the dinosaur era was relatively crowded, so dinosaurs should have territorial awareness. However, in the author's opinion, herbivorous dinosaurs most likely had no territorial awareness, while carnivorous dinosaurs would have . Why do you say this? Let’s talk about it separately:
01 Did herbivorous dinosaurs have no territorial awareness?
Judging from the current unearthed situation of dinosaur fossils by archaeologists, most herbivorous dinosaurs lived in groups. This can be seen from the aggregation of similar dinosaurs in fossil pits. However, despite this, they most likely did not have territorial awareness. The reason was due to the sufficiency of food and the demand for food..
First of all, let's take Jurassic as an example. During the Jurassic period, the earth was warm and humid, which gave plants the conditions to survive and reproduce. Therefore, during the Jurassic period, the ground was covered by a large number of forests, composed of gymnosperms, angiosperms and ferns.
These three types of plant groups decorate the lush vegetation from the surface to mid-air, which also gives different herbivorous dinosaurs space to forage. Therefore, enough food will not actually create competitive pressure. This is one of them.
Secondly, those who are territorial are usually mammals. This is because mammals have a higher demand for food than other animals of the same size. After all, mammals are warm-blooded animals and require a lot of energy to maintain body temperature. Therefore, mammals need to eat about 10% of their body weight every day to maintain their basic body needs . However, dinosaurs are cold-blooded animals and they do not need to consume excessive energy to maintain body temperature, so dinosaurs only need to eat about 1% of their body weight to meet normal needs .
Therefore, in the age of dinosaurs, the earth's environment made vegetation very abundant, and as cold-blooded animals, their demand for food was relatively small. Together, the plants in the age of dinosaurs were able to fully satisfy the survival of herbivorous dinosaurs. Since there is no competition and food is sufficient, territorial awareness will naturally not exist.
02 Why do carnivorous dinosaurs have territorial awareness?
Carnivorous dinosaurs themselves are predatory. They are ferocious and aggressive. This is their nature. As long as they are aggressive, they will be aggressive towards other animals. This is an inducement for their territorial awareness.
Secondly, let's look at the actual evidence. Dinosaurs were not actually extinct, but most of them became extinct, because some coelurosaurs evolved into today's birds .
Among today's birds, many birds have " airspace awareness ". To take the most common example, magpies are typical representatives. They have absolute control and protective behavior over their own "airspace". Other birds will be driven away when they enter. Some eagles and raptors will even be attacked by a group of magpies when they enter.
In addition, pheasant , jungle fowl and other birds also have a fixed range of activities and territorial awareness, and this airspace and territorial awareness should be inherited from their ancestors, that is, coelurosaurs, which belong to the theropod suborder, and they are mostly carnivorous dinosaurs . Therefore, from this perspective, carnivorous dinosaurs should have a relatively strong territorial awareness.
Summary
Dinosaurs are territorial, but it should be limited to carnivorous dinosaurs. As for herbivorous dinosaurs, they are not very aggressive towards other animals. When there is sufficient food, they are too lazy to deal with other dinosaurs. The carnivorous dinosaurs are different. Even if their food is relatively sufficient, their active aggression will make them territorial.
