Stego plates

[morgan@montereybay.com (Michael Morgan)]

>"Certainty" aside, the shape is wrong.  C'mon, John, you've taken
>your "certainty" thing to an extreme.

>If you want to minimize surface area, you make rounded shapes. A
>conical tail is the wrong shape.  You'd want a very flattened tail if
>you wanted to maximize the surface area.  That's one reason why some
>people propose sails or stegosaur plates as radiators - they're flat!


This is just my humble opinion, but if stegosaurs had wanted to evolve a 
radiator, wouldn't it be easier to evolve a skin structure rather than a 
bone one? All modern radiators, mammalian or otherwise, are made of skin
and/or cartilage (correct me if I'm wrong.) =;:>__/. Plus, even if the 
plates *had* been radiators, wouldn't you expect them to be more rounded
and  not so narrow front to back(the stegosaur's front to back, not the 
plates') at the base? The plates also appear to have been *widened* a bit 
side to side, much like an artichoke leaf. I'm looking at a photo I took
at the Smithosian and, though I'm no expert, these widened areas look like 
the attachment sites for skin muscles. I think that the idea of the plates 
being a sort of mobile, keratin-covered armor is far more compatible with
their structure. Any comments?

Oh, and about those hydrogen-filled sauropods, it would be interesting if
they could
change color to match the hot pink of the sunset - unless sunsets were a
different color
in the Mesozoic.
(Sorry Mickey Rowe)


     Susie "whaddaya mean mean the Mesozoic is over?" Morgan             
                           alias                         
                          DeRaptor                         
                              alias                                
                  Tyrannosaura regina            
                        alias
                      Crazy Insane Schizophrenic Weird Person.


   "Oh, dear. My Imaginary friends are laughing at me again."

 

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