sickle claw cross section

["Colette H. Adams" <cadams@hh.gpz.org>]

Well, I'm feeling a little better about dromaeosaur slashing thanks to some
of your posts.  Does anyone have an illustration that shows cross sections
of the sickle claws?  I have only one paper by Ostrom, which for some
reason shows cross sections of the forelimb claws but not the hindlimb.
The forelimb claws appear rather rounded, certainly not highly compressed.
If the sickle claws are very compressed laterally, they presumably had a
significant slashing function.  It is difficult to envision any other
function for such morphology.  Thanks for all of your responses.

As regards the angle of dromaeosaur teeth, I note that their teeth are all
more or less the same size, unlike some other theropods in which the tooth
row forms a "scalpel-like" shape.  The dromaeosaur tooth row is more like
an exacto knife, and their long, slender, slightly upcurved jaws, combined
with their long necks, seem to be adapted for reaching deeply into bodies
and slicing out chunks of flesh.  The more rearward-pointing teeth of
Velociraptor (=Deinonychus) antirrhopus as opposed to other dromaeosaurs
may have allowed it to exert more force than the others and scrape flesh
from bones more completely.  Such a function is in competition with the
penetrative killing function the teeth must also serve.

Best regards,

Dave