Re: alvarezsaurid arms

["Rob Gay" <rob@dinodomain.com>]

>Anyway, termite mounds aren't quite as hard when they have been rained
upon, and the climate was generally less dry back in the Cretaceous.<
I don't know that an animal that was very adapted for a certain purpose (if
digging into mounds is indeed the purpose) would really depend on rains. It
doesn't seem like there would be enough selective pressure if they could
only get into mounds when they were wet.

>And if it was really hungry, a determined Patagonykus could probably attack
even the hardest of mounds by tunneling under it and then up into the soft
interior.<
As stated before, these animals aren't exactly small. While I do think that
alvarezsaurids were adapted for forelimb digging, I would be hard pressed to
believe that they could tunnel/burrow, in the "whole body in the whole"
fashion I'm thinking of.
Didn't they also have beaks? Would this have helped to get through mounds?
Peace,
Rob

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