Re: "DINOSAUR SOCIAL WARMTH" & Dinosaur Nest 'Trashing'

["Ray Stanford" <dinotracker@earthlink.net>]

Rob mentioned:

"...the original find of _Maiasaura_ was of 15 juveniles in close
proximity, within the nest, so that's one possibility. There were three
juvenile ankylosaurs in Mongolia found clustered together..."

    Thanks, Rob.  I'll go back to the literature and look those two cases
over carefully, with the "social warmth" possibility in mind.

    Come to think of it, I suppose one could think of those brooding
oviraptors, with arms spread over their nests, as a kind of social warmth
situation [ :-)], but not exactly like those eleven adult Eastern bluebirds
in a hollow log.

    Speaking of nests, my wife and I saw (about four years ago) a crow eat
and/or destroy all of a smaller bird's eggs and then -- to our utter
amazement -- it went around the neighborhood picking up every available and
manageable piece of trash, and filled the nest with it!  That makes me
wonder if any avian or non-avian mesozoic dinosaurs might likewise have
'trashed' nests after eating the eggs or hatchlings.  Do any known dinosaur
nest findings suggest such 'trashing' behavior?  I guess it could provide
some survival advantage(s).

    Ray Stanford