Son of Ceratopsian forelimbs

["Bruce Woollatt" <brucewoollatt@hotmail.com>]

Hello all;

Herein I continue my review of the Paul & Christiansen paper on the forelimb 
anatomy of ceratopsians. They state that "(s)everal anatomical difficulties 
concerning the mounting of ceratopsid skeletons with nearly parasagittal 
forelimbs stem not from the forelimb itself, but from errors in rib and 
vertebral articulation." A skeletal reconstruction of a set of ceratopsian 
limbs (both fore and hind) is placed within a "probable ceratopsid trackway 
(from Lockley and Hunt 1995)"  -Ceratopsipes goldensis- .  This "shows that 
the hands were placed directly beneath the glenoidsn and that the manual 
impressions were directed laterally, not medially as in sprawling reptiles."
Not that I have any expertise in this field but it would seem to me that the 
Paul/Christiansen paper raises the stakes in this debate. Those who propose 
a splay-limbed stance are either going to have fit their own reconstruction 
into this same set of footprints, which P&C suggest is not possible, or they 
are going to have to show that the footprints were not made by a 
ceratopsian. If the trackway is indeed ceratopsian, then whatever the bones 
were doing, they must have fit the tracks, period. I guess we'll see what 
happens next; we always do.

All for now,
Bruce Woollatt
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