Primordial Predators Article

 The following is an article by John C, McLoughlin, published in Science Digest, a popular science magazine for the general public in October 1982. I was looking for this issue, which I owned as a child, for this blog. it and two other issues, got torn up too much, and I had to throw them away. I have managed to find this one with Argentavis Magnificens, which was a recent discovery back then. It assumes that Argentavis was a giant condor, a type of teratorn related to Teratornis, the giant condor of North America, whose remains have famously been found among the La Brea tarpit fauna. Argentavis may not have been an actual teratorn, however, and could have been more of an active hunter than scavenger, and may have hunted like a colossal eagle. The article shows it bearing off prey, possibly a thoatherium calf. 

There is also a common mistake for the time, the assumption that diatryma, now known as gastornis, was a predator, when we now have confirmed evidence that it was in fact herbivorous. 

Turns out there had to have been an additional article, which I believe must have been about the evolution of predators as well, only it focused on life before and during the dinosaurs' reign. That was the first I recall hearing the term "archosaur", the clad to which dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and crocodiles collectively belong to and tyrannosaurus rex "might have followed herds in small packs, snapping up weak and dead individuals." Anyone out there know what issue this was in?









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