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I forgot to broadcast the initial version of
this blasted thing yesterday:
Original Message From: Dave as "Colette H. Adams"
Date: 02 April 1998
08:00 >The idea that dromaeosaur claws were used for slashing has always bothered >me. It always seemed to me that a better slashing design would be a fairly >straight, bladed claw like that of the cassowary (which certainly does use >it for slashing). The curved blade has the advantage of maintaining the right angle in the wound automatically, like a plough blade. You still need the same force to pull it through the substrate, put you don't need to apply any twisting force to keep it at the right angle (and it automatically maintains its own depth in the wound too). In fact, slanting blades (eg the 40 percent of the sickle claw nearest the tip) progress through flesh etc better than a perpendicular one since they have a slicing component to the moment. The cassowary's slashing claw is only used for slashing occasionally, and thus its design is strongly compromised towards it's other function(s). By the way, does anyone have any suggestions as to why Deinonychus's/(Veloc's) teeth pointed back at a higher angle than its buddies? Could it be because back-angled teeth are better for slicing up meat, and straighter ones are more suitable for catching and stopping prey, which D/V did with its claws ? (Or maybe it didn't bother catching & stopping - it just climbed on!) Maybe a problem with backward pointing teeth is that although they're better for butchering, when the prey attempts to move sideways through the teeth (as is more likely to happen during the catching and killing stage, as opposed to the eating stage) there is an increased tendency to twist the tooth in its socket. Incidentally, the fact that droms have relatively bigger jaws than almost anything else (except Archie, which has relatively small teeth) suggests that they ate prey that was relatively bigger. JJ Because it wouldn't make sense at any other
age.
But I thought you *were*
sixteen!
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