Dinosaur Nest 'Trashing'

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

Ray,
    This trashing behavior sounds rather aberrant to me.  Crows are pretty 
smart, and perhaps finding food in human environments is so easy that they 
flat out get bored.  Reminds me of some humans who have an overabundance of 
time and resources, and resort to non-survival behavior to keep themselves 
amused (e.g., the explosion of silly Guinness World records).
    Since birds and mammals are known to decorate their own abodes with 
items that strike their fancy (and is definitely of reproductive value in 
male bower birds for attracting a mate), such behavior might have 
occasionally occurred in some dinosaurs (non-avian), but not trashing a 
plundered nest (what a waste of energy).
    However, this trashing of a plundered nest sounds like it might be some 
natural behavior that is being expressed in some unusual way (that has no 
survival value in a natural setting that I can imagine).  Maybe the crow's 
water supply was polluted and it was a little "brain-damaged".  So many 
possibilities that could cause aberrant behavior in our increasingly 
unnatural world (is there much pollution in your area?).
    Even if a bored or "crazed" dinosaur rarely did such things, the odds 
of it being of fossilized would probably be close to zero, even in China.
                    Cheers, Ken Kinman
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>     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
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