Re: Dino Knees

[ornstn@inforamp.net (Ronald Orenstein)]

>Whilst walking past a duck pond on my way to work I noticed that the knees
>of ducks appear to be "back to front" i.e. they bend in the opposite way to
>ours.

As others will probably point out, what you saw were not the duck's knees,
but its ankles.  The true knee is (of course) further up the leg and is
covered with feathers.  This is true of all birds (and dinos, though the leg
proportions differ), which are digitigrade (meaning, effectively, that they
walk on tiptoe, so their heels are off the ground.
--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886 (home)
International Wildlife Coalition              Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116 (home)
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