Dinosaur Mimicry

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Ken Kinman (kinman@hotmail.com) wrote:

<...Such mimicry could very well have been enhanced by
similarities in color and patterns in the coat of feathery
dinofuzz.>

  It should be noted that mimicry is an ecologic function,
related to such pressures as environment, especially the
predator/prey complex, and has little to do with animals that
just _tend_ to have some similar features. These are
convergences, such as the jaws of segnosaurs and prosauropods,
etc. The arms of *Deinocheirus* and *Therizinosaurus* have few
even visual similarities and are immediately distinguishable on
the basis of the hand and humerus. The main similar criterion,
as I posted previously for the basis of Barsbold's (1976)
Deinocheirosauria was long forelimbs, general size, and claw
size. Most of these are related to function, probably diet and
acquisition, and both animals are adapted to the point that it
seems they do not overlap ecologically, and it is my opinion
that mimicry didn't even come close.

  One cannot further define mimicry as extant on the basis of
"dinofuzz" being found in dissimilar taxa, as color is not
definable by present preservation. It is unlikely on the basis
of various other features, that "dinofuzz" would be mimicked in
various taxa, as the lineagses involved are all in disparate
ecologies, appear to have different feeding strategies, etc.,
and thus do not overlap with similar bauplans. That the record
my demonstrate something else in the future is up to then. Now,
this is not the case.

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhr-gen-ti-na
  Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Pampas!!!!

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