RE: Dinosaur "intellegence"

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Jordan Mallon
>
> I've been posting recently at a dinosaur-related message board, and the
> topic of dinosaur intellence has come up as of late.  As one person, who
> goes by the name "Dr. Paleontology", posted, "As for the
> Sinornithosaurus,
> yes it was small and the belief is generaly that the smaller the
> dinosaur is
> the more intelligent (with possible exceptions)."
>
> Out of curiosity, do we actually have any evidence to back this up?  The
> smaller the dinosaur, the "smarter" it might have been?  (What is
> "smart",
> anyway?)  I understand that not a whole lot can be said on dinosaur
> intellence, since we can't truly measure their IQ or what have
> you.  And I
> also now understand that calculations relating to EQ don't really tell us
> much.
> Just curious as to the validity of this statement...
>
"Dr. Paleontology" seems to be a bit confused.  There is not evidence that
smaller dinosaurs were more intelligent as such.  I can think of a few
points of origin for his confusion:

A) Allometry: as a matter of course, the brain takes up a larger fraction of
the body size in smaller animals than larger ones.

B) The observation that coelurosaurs (which are generally small dinosaurs)
have the highest EQs among Dinosauria.

I might ask you to ask Dr. Paleo for the evidence for his statement, and
perhaps you can see if its is a misinterpretation of either of the above, or
perhaps a different idea.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796