Re: Oviraptor

["Jaime Headden" <jaemei@hotmail.com>]

<<All extant plant eaters, sans birds, have teeth. Birds (the best
example to use, anyway) eat leaves and other plants by plucking with 
long, pointy bills, or shearing with smooth or serrated, thick bills. No 
double-curved billed birds (such as falconiforms, referring to the 
mandible) are herbivorous.>>

<Hold on. Tortoises have no teeth. And I'm not sure what you mean by 
double-curved, but parrots' bills are strongly curved.>

I meant the mandible. Curves up, then down. In *Rinchenia*, there is not 
hook on the end, but that does not mean the rhamphotheca was not hooked.

<<Insects and fish are also diets possible for the oviraptors, just no 
proof. The jaws are hooked bellow and cupped above, good for clamping 
onto something, especially in the little palatine teeth could grab into 
the soft innards or flesh.>>

<Insectivorous mammals and squamates retain their teeth for crunching 
exoskeletons, except for several specialised long-snouted, long- tongued 
mammals. Most piscivores have many pointy teeth to give the best grip on 
slippery prey, but Pteranodon is an exception. I don't expect there were 
enough fish available to support the Oviraptor populations.>

The palatine could have simply crushed the exoskeleton---teeth are not 
imperitive fo this task. Step on a bug and see what I mean: *Oviraptor* 
had the power to do this to some pretty big bugs.

<Oviraptor's beak looks a bit like a flamingo's. Has someone mentioned 
that before, or is it my usual sense of deja vu?  However, I am pretty 
sure that Oviraptor did not filter feed upside down in hypersaline 
lakes.>

The shape of the flamingo's bill is suited best to scooping. Why the 
bill was bent downward so the bird would have to turn its head upside 
down to feed I don't know---turning upward, however, may have ruined its 
aerodynamic qualities when in flight; also, the filters of the upper jaw 
could just as easily been shifted to the lower jaw. But a scoop-feeding 
*Oviraptor*....

Jaime A. Headden

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