Re: Eagle eyes

[Emily Tremain <etremain@gac.edu>]

Perhaps it was used to deflect tails of traveling companions. 


>> I was studying some skeletal reconstructions of ornithopods today and I
noticed
>> something that I had never thought much of before.  Many (I won't say
all, for
>> there may be exceptions) ornithopods have a nob of bone extending over
their
>> eyes.  This palpebral bone, as it is called, would give  them a
fobidding "eagal
>> eye" (that forbidding glare common to raptors) in life (I remember reading
>> something to the effect in a Gregory Paul essay).  My question is this:
"Why would
>> you evolve a palpebral bone?"  Obviously, it is something good, for both
raptors
>> and ornithopods had them, and since predatory dinosaurs didn't have
them, must
>> have evolved the structure independantly (right?)
>> 
>> So, what is their function?
>
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>Flying Goat Graphics
>http://www.flyinggoat.com
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 ~~~~~~~~~~~'@(l~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emily Tremain
Gustavus Adolphus College
Department of Geology
800 West College Ave.
St. Peter, MN 56082-1498

"The past is not behind us, but beneath our feet."  --Henry Corbin