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Re: any "Dino-skunks"?



Matt,
    But the point is that mimicry has little to do with skeletal
differences that we use to identify, because the predator only sees the
outside of the body.  If you were a predator who had had one or more bad
experiences with a spotted skunk, and later on caught a glimpse of an animal
of the same general size (with the same spotted pattern) running through the
grass or brush, you would almost certainly hesitate (probably long enough
for the animal to escape), or perhaps even head the other way.  It is rather
unlikely you are going to go full speed after it to get a close enough look
to see if it another skunk or not.
    That is why mimicry is a rather common occurrence.   A large number of
spiders (in a variety of different families) are ant-mimics.  Not only the
body shape, but they often run around in the jerky manner that many ants do.
 Of course, the reason this works is that many spider predators don't like
the taste of ants.
    Mimicry certainly isn't 100% effective, but if looking like an ant or a
skunk is even 50% effective in getting predators to avoid you, or at least
hesitate, sooner or later you are probably going to get a mimicks evolving
to take advantage of it.
    As for Protarcheopteryx, I think it is probably closer to Oviraptorids
than are the therizinosaurs.  Between Protarcheopteryx and Oviraptorids
would be Families Caenagnathidae and Caudipteridae, and possibly genus
Beipiaosaurus (but probably not segnosaurs).  The similarities between
Protarcheopteryx and Caudipteryx are almost certainly due to their being
closely related.
     Biologists can fairly easily tell a monarch from a viceroy butterfly,
and even a therizinosaur from an ornithomime, but if viceroys can fool
modern birds into thinking they are monarchs, then I think therizinosaurs or
ornithomimes could also have developed mimicry that would have fooled their
predators, at least part of the time.
                       -----Ken Kinman
*********************************************************

From: Matt Martyniuk <dinoguy2@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: dinoguy2@yahoo.com
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: any "Dino-skunks"?
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2001 14:12:20 -0700 (PDT)

Just thought I'd chime in on this subject...

"Gross resemblance" is a very subjective term, but I
personally wouldn't apply it in this case, especially
since we're only dealing with skeletal remains here
(for the most part). If you compared the skeleton of a
wolf and a leopard, I think you'd see a much stronger
resemblance than if you compared an _Ornithomimus_
with, say, an _Alxasaurus_. Ornithomimosaurs
superficially resemble therizinosaurs to a certain
extent, yes, but this only lies in the fact that they
both have long necks. Therizinonosaurs also supposedly
had a much more upright posture than ornithomimosaurs
(possibly due to their short tail length). In short,
it's pretty hard to confuse the two groups. Maybe
better candidates for mimicry would be _Caudipteryx_
and _Protarchaeopteryx_, if they're not in fact
closely related.
   Your dino-skunk idea, however, is pretty intriguing
(though most likely untestable).

--Matt Martyniuk
martyniukm2@scranton.edu
Paleo Art:
http://www.geocities.com/dinoguy2/images/paleoart.htm

>>
Ken Kinman wrote:
Jaime,
   I will certainly keep classifying Deinocheirus in
Family  Ornithomimidae, but the similarities in
"gross" body shape between  Ornithomimes and
Therizinosaurs seriously make me wonder if one group
(or  subgroups thereof) was mimicking the appearance
of the other for some  reason.
   Such mimicry could very well have been enhanced by
similarities in  color and patterns in the coat of
feathery dinofuzz.  After all, I can  immediately tell
a monarch from a viceroy butterfly with a mere glance,
but  the similarities in patterns of colored
wing-scales has been fooling some  rather
"intelligent" bird predators for millions of years.
   I don't think the gross similarities of
ornithomimes and therizinosaurs  is just coincidence.
The question is whether such similarities are due to
similar ways of life (and some degree of relatedness)
or if this could be  mimicry.  If the latter, which
was mimicking which?  Perhaps Ornithomimes  were in
reality "Therizinomimes"? <<

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