RE: Bird vs. theropod dinosaur tracks/trackways

["Stewart, Dwight" <Dwight.Stewart@VLSI.com>]

        -----Original Message-----
        From:   Jason Pedersen [SMTP:prometheus_79@hotmail.com]
        Sent:   Tuesday, April 20, 1999 8:26 PM
        To:     dinosaur@usc.edu
        Subject:        Re: Bird vs. theropod dinosaur tracks/trackways


        <SNIP>
         And theropods had long legs.  
        And that's where I get stuck.  Muscle scars on T.rex femurs indicate

        heavy muscle mass.  Perhaps for some reason there was a split, one 
        group of birds gets the long legs, and another gets the strong ones.


        Someone help me out, I'm dying here.  :)

        Jason 

        _@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

        The robustness of the Tyrannosaurus rex femur was probably necessary
because of the
        over-all bulk of the animal.  Tyrannosaur legs are long, but they
also had to be sturdy
        to properly carry a multi-ton giant.  To me, the implied leg
morphology of the Tyrannosaurus
        rex looks like a sprinter.

        Dwight