Re: Tyrannosaur Arm Capabilities

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

Having a T rex squat/lay down/sit/brood on a small spot on the ground
without damaging whatever is in that spot would be like trying to back a
dump truck around a wedding cake in the middle of the road. 

EVERYONE points out that T rex had FORWARDS FACING eyes "signs of a
predator", so the periferal vision was weak at best, and your talking a
point to exhibit 'delicate-as-eggshells' control that was as much as 15
feet behind the snout (if we talk pelvis-closer to 10 feet if we talk
breast) and UNDER it's own body.

As a kid we used to joke that the reason why T rexes were so mean was
that someone had given them a pocket watch and they couldn't ever
actually SEE the watch as their own head would occlude the arms.  (ok,
so we were wierd kids)  Nothing, as far as I know, as changed about
this, um, awkward positioning.

Next I'll hear someone propose T rex had WHISKERS in the pelvis area to
detect where the eggs were since they couldn't see their own hands.

-Betty Cunningham

TomHopp@aol.com wrote:
>     Why did you start by rejecting the notion that it "breasted" the nest?
> Its cousins oviraptor and Cock Robin both do/did this.  You moved away from,
> dare I say it? - parsimony, with that assumption.
>    The simpler assumption is that T rex built an oviraptor style nest, then
> put its arms around it, like oviraptor did. This would bring the birds'
> favorite incubator, the breast, into contact with the eggs.  Furthermore, it
> would align the arm feathers around the nest or hatchlings, the way that
> oviraptor, Caudipteryx, Protarchaeopteryx and modern birds could/can do.
> These wing feathers are indespensible for offspring protection in modern
> eagles, gulls, ostriches and quail, so why assume there was no use for them in
> T rex?