How did the LBT dinosaurs choose mates?

[action9000]

It recently occurred to me that the dinosaurs in The Land Before Time could not have had all of the same criteria for choosing their mates as modern humans.  This is related to the debate on whether Ali and Littlefoot could end up together someday, and why they would choose to do so, however I ask the question in general: How do LBT dinosaurs choose a mate to stay with?

It is a difficult question in a way,  because we are no especially exposed to a complete family unit throughout the LBT series: None of the families of the Gang of Five have both parents in the Great Valley with them, nor do we see both mates of any LBT characters aside from Littlefoot's grandparents.  The only examples we see of (possible) two-mate relationships are Littlefoot's grandparents, Chomper's parents in LBT 2 and LBT 5, and possible Mo's "waterkin" in LBT 9.  Even the tiny longnecks in LBT 11 never referred to a mother.

To rationally decide how they may have approached the process of choosing a mate, I'm going to take on the role of a male dinosaur in the LBT world.

I believe in the importance of teamwork; working together to solve problems, regardless of the kind of dinosaurs we are.  Just because we're different doesn't mean we can't work together and help each other.  It is important to me to have a constant place to call home, where I'm not forced to move about all the time, as part of a nomadic herd.  I want to have children someday, in a safe place for my family to grow up.  I am strong, and willing to protect my family from danger by force, if I must.


Another male dinosaur may have very different beliefs:

A herd needs to stick to its own kind if it is to be strong and successful.  How can we know what another type of dinosaur is thinking?  We don't know anything about them.  If you want to stay alive, you need to be in good physical shape and know your environment and how to deal with it.  I would like to live with a migrating herd, for the purpose of seeing exciting new places and living life to its fullest!  I'd like to have a family someday, to be able to care for someone and watch them grow up to be big and strong.  A herd is great protection, but in the end it's everyone for themselves.

We saw in the original film that even dinosaurs of the same species (Comparing Littlefoot's mother to Littlefoot himself) can have different beliefs on what is right.  Littlefoot soon learned the value of having friends of all kinds.  Littlefoot's mother never learned (or at least agreed with) such a lesson throughout her life.

In short, dinosaurs may have considered the life values of their partner, and how they wish to live their lives.  Like humans, the ability to get along and work through problems, not constantly fight over them, is vital.  Partners would likely have similar interests when it comes to a decision of whether to raise a family.  We see in the series that Grandma and Grandpa longneck are able to talk calmly with each other to solve any issues, and they tend to agree on issues where ethics or important decisions are involved.

What do you think about the process of finding mates in the LBT world?

[Malte279]

It is a difficult question in a way, because we are no especially exposed to a complete family unit throughout the LBT series: None of the families of the Gang of Five have both parents in the Great Valley with them, nor do we see both mates of any LBT characters aside from Littlefoot's grandparents. The only examples we see of (possible) two-mate relationships are Littlefoot's grandparents, Chomper's parents in LBT 2 and LBT 5, and possible Mo's "waterkin" in LBT 9.

Not quite correct Tim. We do see both of Ducky's parents at the end of the original movie, and while he never ever plays any active role whatsoever we do see Ducky's father in LBT 2 and LBT 5 (during the reunifictation scene). The fact that Ducky of all dinosaurs has both parents may give credit to the scientific thesis that many hadrosaur kinds did have more of an established family life than most kinds did. Species names such Maiasaura (good mother lizard) are based on these theories.
According to the scientific theories (I must admit though that I am not aware on which facts the theories are based) Petrie would probably stand the smallest chance of ever getting aware that there is somebody like a father (which may partly explain his extreme favor of Pterano who may be a kind of father figure). Most (not all) Pterosaurs just met for mating and parted ways after that. For them it was the mere point to reproduce.
As for Cera, her mother seems to be lost since the original LBT. There is of course a lot of room for speculations about Tria. Did Topsy meet her before he got to know Cera's mum? Why didn't they stay together? Was their original relationship less of a love relationship than it is the case in LBT 11? Cera at least seem to have strong ties to her family from what she is saying throughout the series.
According to the theories I have heard Littlefoot must have been quite lucky indeed to grow up along with his mother and grand parents. Scientists suppose sauropod to have burried their eggs under a thin layer of earth and then move on, so sauropod hatchlings would be on their own from the very beginning. Considering their need of foot it is not likely that sauropods could stay in one place for long before having eaten up everything around, which is why the concept of a moving herd such as Ali's is more realistic than that of sauropods being able to stay in one place. This difference of life adds one problem to any possibility of a Littlefoot / Ali relationship. Either she'll have to give up herd live or he'll have to give up the Great Valley.

[action9000]

We do see both of Ducky's parents at the end of the original movie, and while he never ever plays any active role whatsoever we do see Ducky's father in LBT 2 and LBT 5 (during the reunifictation scene).

You are right, Malte.  My mistake.

This difference of life adds one problem to any possibility of a Littlefoot / Ali relationship. Either she'll have to give up herd live or he'll have to give up the Great Valley.

This is exactly the sort of discussion I was hoping to lead to.  I am somewhat concerned about the long-term likelyhood of a Littlefoot / Ali relationship for a number of reasons, two of which being
1)They have to run into each other again in order to reunite.  They have not yet done so.

2) The difference of lifestyle, as you mentioned.

According to the theories I have heard Littlefoot must have been quite lucky indeed to grow up along with his mother and grand parents. Scientists suppose sauropod to have burried their eggs under a thin layer of earth and then move on, so sauropod hatchlings would be on their own from the very beginning.

A number of elements in the LBT series tend to be less-than-scientific (take the apatosaurs' mobile neck, for instance).  From what the series suggests, dinosaurs in the LBT universe tend to care for and nuture both their eggs and their young.

[NewOrder]

What we need to realise is that eventhough the series is about dinosaurs most of them have many human characteristics, they're more antropomorphic than we usually think, in a way children can relate with them like they would relate to small cartoon people.
But going on the scientific level, we can't say anything for sure about dinosaur's way of life since they've been extinct for 65 million years, although what you've mentioned is very similar to what I and most paleontologists believe. However, late jurassic sauropods are believed to have left their young at their own mercy but middle and late cretaceous one's like Titanosaurus and other Titanosauridae, have been found amongst nests and young offspring, so it's logical to believe that late sauropods have developed some kind of mother nurturing thing.
I still believe that the promess at the end of LBT 4 wil be kept and that the gang will meet Ali again, I also believe the series is converging to a climax where all the dinosaurs will have to face some kind of test and try to get by, much like in the original movie, so if the gang meet Ali's herd they'll probably have to help each other out and maybe feel compeled to move to some other place or to stay in the great valley. There are maney possible scenarios and I hope the people who write the "scripts" will consider the best one's, and maybe this reunion with Ali will be the definitive one and won't be as difficult or as full of issues as one might think. Still this is just as good of a guess as anyone's  

[Petrie.]

Closest we probably can come is to look at the animal world.  What do they do?  Usually, the male will search out females who are ready for mating, and if there is another, they fight until one wins, and well, you know the rest.  :  I would assume that's generally what happened.  Hard to think of grandfatherly Grandpa Longneck getting really mad.  

[lbt/cty_lover]

In social animals, the dominant male normally has multiple mates. I'm not sure if dinosaur minds are different, but they probably are in this case.

[Kor]

Real world dinos likely choose mates like real world animals did.  The dinos of LBT likely choose mates much the same way humans do.

[landbeforetimelover]

They most likely choose mates through availability.  I mean with Cera's dad, when was the last time you saw an actual female threehorn that was actually part of the movie?  Littlefoot will most likely want Ali when they're old enough mainly because she is available and possibly receptive.  Ali however may have had exposer to many other male longnecks, and therefore might not choose Littlefoot in a realistic point of view.

[Malte279]

Not to mention their totally different way of life. Littlefoot is very glad to live in the Great Valley and wouldn't want to leave it (or understand why anyone would be happy to live the more perilous life or a migrating dinosaur). Ali on the other hand might have a hard time to understand anyone living such a sheltered but cramped and limited live as the Great Valley seems to offer. Giving up the live as a nomad might be as difficult for her as it would be for Littlefoot to leave the Great Valley. LBT 4 never really makes a point of this question, but for what other reason would Ali's herd move on rather than staying in the Great Valley (as offered to them by Littlefoot's grandma)?

[Manny Cav]

To know how the LBT dinosaurs chose mates would require a rough knowledge of how "real" dinosaurs chose mates, and THAT would require a time machine, or the capability to clone enough dinosaurs of a certain species from existing information and DNA that we could recreate such an experience. But, even then, that may not have answered the initial question, because it's highly unlikely that the LBT dinosaurs lived the same lifestyle and thought the same way as "real" dinosaurs. Since time machines and cloning of that magnitude are aways off, all we can do is speculate and extrapolate from existing knowledge obtained from the LBT films as presented to us, or hope a future LBT film answers these questions outright, which is a far hope, given the audience that the series is targeted at.

[Malte279]

They seem to have some knowledge about this though, or at least theories good enough to be presented to the public. The BBC series walking with dinosaurs included some information on this. Looking at that information makes clear though why LBT dinosaurs would indeed behave differently :
Petrie is not likely to fly to one meeting place of the flyers some day trying to ensure the continuation of his bloodline with as many female mates as possible. According to that series T-Rex too were most likely loners with the females taking care of the eggs and the hatchlings (so Chomper would not enjoy the benefit of being one of the few LBT dinosaurs with both parents still there). From what the series said Littlefoot probably would have never met his mother (not to mention his grandparents) as sauropods were supposed to bury their eggs under a thin layer of earth and leave them to hatch by themselves (the amounts of foot required by those huge dinosaurs kept them from staying in one place for a long time waiting for the eggs to hatch).

[Kor]

Some did build nests and cared for their young, or at least watched over the nests.

[landbeforetimelover]

Most of what we "know" about dinosaurs is just speculation from some idiot trying to make money the easy way by trying to turn his or her theory into fact when it isn't proven. : I don't believe anything anyone tells me about dinosaurs unless they have a lot of proof.  Most of it however needs so much proof that we'll probably never know for sure.  Just like judging our distance from a star.  Sure, it is a very good theory  that we can use light to prove the distance between things in space, but it has little relevant evidence.  They're basing the travel of light on an earthly scale.  Well, obviously light traveling in space might slightly differ from light traveling in our contained environment of our planet.  How we tell facts about dinosaurs is even less reliable.  


"Oh, yeah, we found some eggs lying beneath the surface of the earth, which leads us to believe that the dinosaurs buried their young"

"well, how many of these did you find?"

"Lots"

"were they all over or just in a scattered area around the planet?"

"Well.......we've only found them within a 150 mile radius of this building"

"So, is it possible that they were buried by a massive rock slide or through some other sort of natural disaster?"

"Well, I suppose so, but they only survived since they were buried so we have no way to see if there are any other eggs that arn't buried"

"So, in other words, you think that they buried their young, but there really isn't any concrete evidence?"

"Yes, but Let's just call this fact so we can make our money for this dig."

"Sounds like a plan to me."  "We might even get rich for making this discovery"





That's how most facts about dinosaurs are.  There really is not a lot of concrete evidence because of all the selfish people fabricating things so they could make a fortune and crap like that.  There probably is concrete evidence out there, but we have no way to know the difference between someone fabricating concrete evidence and someone actually having true concrete evidence.  How sad. -_-

[Manny Cav]

They seem to have some knowledge about this though, or at least theories good enough to be presented to the public. The BBC series walking with dinosaurs included some information on this. Looking at that information makes clear though why LBT dinosaurs would indeed behave differently :
Petrie is not likely to fly to one meeting place of the flyers some day trying to ensure the continuation of his bloodline with as many female mates as possible. According to that series T-Rex too were most likely loners with the females taking care of the eggs and the hatchlings (so Chomper would not enjoy the benefit of being one of the few LBT dinosaurs with both parents still there). From what the series said Littlefoot probably would have never met his mother (not to mention his grandparents) as sauropods were supposed to bury their eggs under a thin layer of earth and leave them to hatch by themselves (the amounts of foot required by those huge dinosaurs kept them from staying in one place for a long time waiting for the eggs to hatch).

The problem with presenting theories like that to the public is that they too easily get accepted as fact, not even going through the scientific method.

I was loafing through Wikipedia once, and I happened into dinosaur related articles. I read over bits and pieces, and I could have swore that the way the articles sounded, they had actually seen a dinosaur of that species grow from childhood to adulthood with their very eyes! From little more than a pile of bones, they were able to tell gobs of information like how it's life was, when it reached sexual maturity, etc. Plus, with the way information on "how the dinosaurs actually lived" is always changing, how scientists are always disagreeing, etc., there really isn't anything from this world that can tell us how the LBT dinosaurs chose mates. Again, we've only got speculation at our side.

[DarkHououmon]

Most of what we "know" about dinosaurs is just speculation from some idiot trying to make money the easy way by trying to turn his or her theory into fact when it isn't proven. : I don't believe anything anyone tells me about dinosaurs unless they have a lot of proof.  Most of it however needs so much proof that we'll probably never know for sure.  Just like judging our distance from a star.  Sure, it is a very good theory  that we can use light to prove the distance between things in space, but it has little relevant evidence.  They're basing the travel of light on an earthly scale.  Well, obviously light traveling in space might slightly differ from light traveling in our contained environment of our planet.  How we tell facts about dinosaurs is even less reliable.  


"Oh, yeah, we found some eggs lying beneath the surface of the earth, which leads us to believe that the dinosaurs buried their young"

"well, how many of these did you find?"

"Lots"

"were they all over or just in a scattered area around the planet?"

"Well.......we've only found them within a 150 mile radius of this building"

"So, is it possible that they were buried by a massive rock slide or through some other sort of natural disaster?"

"Well, I suppose so, but they only survived since they were buried so we have no way to see if there are any other eggs that arn't buried"

"So, in other words, you think that they buried their young, but there really isn't any concrete evidence?"

"Yes, but Let's just call this fact so we can make our money for this dig."

"Sounds like a plan to me."  "We might even get rich for making this discovery"





That's how most facts about dinosaurs are.  There really is not a lot of concrete evidence because of all the selfish people fabricating things so they could make a fortune and crap like that.  There probably is concrete evidence out there, but we have no way to know the difference between someone fabricating concrete evidence and someone actually having true concrete evidence.  How sad. -_-

What makes you think they are idiots? Really how is anyone to find concrete evidence on dinosaur behavior? All we have to go by are theories. We can't tell dinosaur behavior from bones alone. It's not like we have live specimans around today to tell us anything.

[Malte279]

I agree that many of the theories have to be taken with a large grain of salt. However, it is not like the theory about sauropods not staying with their young would lack any plausible thinking. If sauropods lived in herds which seems (I don't claim to know it) likely they would consume huge amounts of green food every day. Therefore they wouldn't be able to stay in any place (unlike such a magic place like the Great Valley always offering enough food unless some disaster strikes ) for a long time. Assuming that it would take some time for the eggs to hatch it doesn't seem possible that those huge eaters could stay around all the time. burring the eggs under a thin layer of soft earth seems to be the most plausible thing to do to protect them from the cold and the eyes of predators. I guess we can take it for granted that sauropods did not have the ability to take eggs along on their journey. So unless the eggs hatched really very quickly after they were laid (I don't know which scientific evidence there is or isn't about the time it took for a sauropod to hatch) we must either assume that the parents moved on or else stayed around guarding the eggs and taking a diet into account. The later doesn't seem likely for a species which must have consumed tons of green food to maintain its huge body.
While I agree that scientific theories must be handled with care, it is not like they were made up by greedy people without a clue of anything. If you really want to make money you are not going to become a Paleontologist in the first place.

[Tails_155]

roulette, oh wait... it wasn't around then... never mind

[Cancerian Tiger]

It is interesting that some have brought up the topic of "broken families" here.  The family structures of our pals seem to correlate with American family tie issues: Littlefoot being raised by his grandparents, most of Cera's family being deceased(including her mother) then having a step-mother and half-sister become part of her family, Ducky and Spike's father(if he still is around since LBT VIII) being the worker while Mama Swimmer is a stay-at-home mom, and Petrie's mother being a single mother.  I'm sure many viewers can relate to the Gang's family structures.  The fact that Spike is adopted would hit close to home for a good number of viewers, including myself.  

Anyhoo, I'm sure the dinosaurs chose mates for life as humans do, and just like humans, often find another mate when their mate passes away.  There is increasing evidence that many dinosaur species(including threehorns) did not live in herds, but were instead solitary creatures.  So...this may leave out the whole "polygamy" theory.  They may have also chose mates based on looks and a healthy plump physique, just like humans do.  I dunno...just my thoughts on this subject.  Another post from a biology nut :  .

[Kor]

They likely choose mates for much of the same reasons and methods humans do, likely more American then other countries, like those with arranged marriages, if any still do that.  

As for Ducky's father, I assume he is around, just not shown since they seem to hate animating extra characters, and do things that make little sense.  Ali and Tippy being the only kids of their herds, very unlikely, but that is another topic.

[Malte279]

There is increasing evidence that many dinosaur species(including threehorns) did not live in herds, but were instead solitary creatures. So...this may leave out the whole "polygamy" theory.

I guess this depends very much on the species. Looking at the BBC documentary "Walking with dinosaurs" it seems like the Hadrosauridae (that would include Ducky, the only one with both parents in more than one movie) were more prone to a family live than the large Pterosaurs. In case of the later the documentary presents a mating season where the males tried to mate with as many females as possible but only the strongest could assert themselves over their rivals (socialdarwinism). In case of the Sauropods (longnecks) no family live comparable to that of humans would be possible either. It begins with the fact that they could not stay around a nest waiting for their egg to hatch as their need for food made them constant migrators (realistically Ali's way of life would be the only way of life a sauropod could choose). In any case it is a bit silly trying to attach human moral standards to the historical dinosaurs while of course some were attached to the LBT dinosaurs to keep it a family movie.