Re: DROMAEOSAUR "SICKLE" CLAWS

[Casey Tucker <TUCKERCJ@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu>]

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> From: Jonathon Woolf <jwoolf@erinet.com>
> To: gbabcock@best.com
> Cc: franczak@ntplx.net; dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: DROMAEOSAUR "SICKLE" CLAWS
> Date: Thursday, September 04, 1997 8:26 AM
> 
> Ralph Miller III wrote:
> 
> > What, then, do <you> think the dromaeosaurs were doing with those big
> > claws?
> 
> I don't know what they were used for.  I only know that I don't really
> find any of the conventional explanations to be convincing.  The huge
> foot-claw in dromaeosaurs seems to me to be a case of extreme overkill
> in any predatory scenario.  
> -- JSW

Extreme overkill?  Nothing like the fangs on a Sabretooth cat,or a modern
Persian Leopard who has one of the proportionally larger sets of fangs of
any modern predator, or the amount of force per square inch in a
crocodile's bite.  There are many examples of predators with "weapons" that
seem like overkill.

Casey T.
Miami Univ.
TUCKERCJ@MUohio.edu