On Fri, 2 Jun 2000, Ray Audette wrote:

> Modern domestic animals that produce high fat have been bred to emphaze
> traits shared by all Pleistocene Megafauna.  These fat storing animals
> dominated during all but the last 10k years of the last two million years of
> homo sapien history.  During this time there were very few trees in
> temperate latitudes ( according to pollen traped in ice sheets and
> sedimentary mud formations)

This is interesting, because you also stated that Pleistocene
deer were larger and fatter than modern deer.  Deer, however, are
forest dwellers; they eat the bark of saplings and shoots.  They
do not flourish in steppe-tundra conditions.  As your brother
pointed out some time ago, the deer of Texas are smaller than the
deer of Pennsylvania.  Texas is much closer to steppe-tundra
environment than Pennsylvania is.  Pennsylvania is heavily
forested.  An environment where deer could grow to be larger than
Pennsylvania deer would be an environment where nuts would be
plentiful as well.

Todd Moody
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