Comments on JP errors

[DAVEH47@delphi.com]

(Replies to Paul Willis' remarks on JP mistakes):

>Velociraptor only comes from Mongolia (Montana has provided some
>scrappy material identified as Velociraptor but these are
>probably confused with other dinosaurs).

Some dinosaurologists believe Velociraptor and Deinonychus
are synonymous.  I personally don't agree because their skulls
seem too different to me.  But that might be the reason the
American specimens are called 'Velociraptor' in the movie.

>Velociraptor snarling (with what facial musculature, pray-tell?).

Snarling 'raptor probably absurd...but less absurd than the
snarling brontosaur in the old silent version of 'The Lost
World'.

>According to Bakker (for better or worse) brachiosaurs couldn't
>stand on their back legs (diplodocids could).

All experts I've heard agree brachiosaurs didn't have the back
muscles to hoist up their 80-100 ton bodies onto their short
back legs.  But in JP they wanted effect, I guess.

>Sauropods dinosaurs can't chew, their jaws are simple hinge-jonts
>that would not allow lateral movements and their teeth are all
>wrong for the job anyway.

Agreed.  Most experts seem to think that a sauropod's only hope of
eating enough to survive was to pluck off the leaves, immediately
swallow, and then let their gizzards do the "chewing".


                       -- Dave