Re: Feathered Theropods -Reprise

["Peter Von Sholly" <vonrex@gte.net>]

And don't forget, Deinonychi could probably flap their feathered arms and
glide for short distances. (I'm such a smartass)  Nothing  personal, Dann.

----------
> From: Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: Feathered Theropods -Reprise
> Date: Thursday, October 01, 1998 2:31 AM
> 
> John Clavin wrote:
> > 
> > A 6ft wolf would be a pretty big one.
> > Mostly they're a little smaller and more slender that a German Shepherd
dog.
> 
> Except for those north American populations that specialise in hunting
> bison, which tend to be quite large. I suspect that a 10 foot
> Deinonychus (half of which, or more, would have been tail) would
> have been lighter than the average adult wolf. Wolves don't have
> the hollow-boned, avian-like body form that dromaeosaurs seem to have
> had. Which begs the question: is that because dromaeosaurs are
> decended from flying (or at least arborial) anscestors, where
> weight reduction was a necessity? Or was the development of flight
> facilitated by the light-weight small theropod design? A chicken
> and egg problem, you might say.  :)
> 
> -- 
> ____________________________________________________
>       Dann Pigdon
>       GIS Archaeologist
>       Melbourne, Australia
> 
>       Australian Dinosaurs:
>       http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/4459/
>       http://www.alphalink.com.au/~dannj
> ____________________________________________________