| Gettin Gigi With It: Part 1
::Shaking head:: Is this topic uncomfortable for some people? I mean, apparently the defense mechanism is to make fun of it whenever it surfaces on the DML.... WHY is that? My comments have NOTHING to do with a mega-paleo box-office flop. My heart couldn't care less. I'm not interested in a rip off of "Galdiator" with Tyrannosaurus rex starring instead of Russell Crowe. I don't think we need to fire those in product marketing. And does it really matter what Robin Hood and his Merry Men have to say?... In fact, if you really wanted to be witty about my nonexistent issue, I, personally, would have compared the fairy tale epic battle between Tyrannosaurus Rex and Giganotosaurus with that of King Arthur and Sir Modred.... Of course, The Great Gazoo would replace Merlin for Tyrannosaurus rex.... But, that's just me.... ::rolling eyes:: But you know what?.... Fine... I'll agree... It is true that people intentionally say "My dino can beat up your dino".... But you know what? That is not what is going on here. What really seems to be going on is some type of little kid thing. It's like the first time you go to the gym and you think the tall guys will be the strongest.... but they turn out not to be. This is real the problem. Apparently, people are just content to point out only height and strength.... Especially pound for pound strength... and leave it at that. I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but it doesn't work that way. Your angles do a hell of a lot.... A long thick bone can be strong but one half as long and just as thick can be stronger. All of us should already know this.... but it appears that a great deal of us do not. Many people take a look at Giganotosaurus and immediately proclaim "Hurray!!!!... Even though the name doesn't roll off the tongue, the North has yet to accept the South, and it hasn't been shown in Hollywood yet, the King has been dethroned!!!" I'm sorry, it's not a pet-dino thing, no matter how hard you want it to be. If the King was dethroned, who cares? It would be neat actually if this was to become the case. I have no emotional stock in Dinosaur King Coronation. For those of you that do... I am sincerely sorry. All I'm saying is to use the anatomy on a more complex scale rather than pull the infamous "Look Mommy!... He's so tall!!!... Can he beat up Daddy?" That is all I was really saying. Do not go by size alone since size only implies certain measurements. Mr. Tracy L Ford has been the ONLY one that has taken me seriously and was gracious enough to explain to me the real deal with the skull when it came to my anatomical inquiry into its construction and design. Not to dredge it up again, and not that it really matters, but this is deliciously amusing for me considering past events and how a few of the list members view Tracy in a negative light. Though I will say that I am still lost as to why the rear of the skull is built in that manner. The postorbital is just so wide.... The wide spread of the rear of the skull.... Really makes me scratch my head. The weird thing is that sometimes the length of the muscle is used to make a good bite.... But it seems short in a relative way at the back of the skull.... But the other strange thing is the pterygoid muscles must have been very very long. So..... RAM dump from your minds all that I just wrote above...... Let's go back to why I wrote my original post to begin with..... To state my amateur anatomical observations about the neck and to mention some ideas that pertain to its design and function..... Thoughts? Comments? Problems? Concerns? Make sure to read Part 2. I'll even cut and paste my original speculations about the anatomy of the neck of Giganotosaurus so we can all forget about Prince John slaying the Spinosaurus....... >>>But.... I have to say that the neural spines in Giganotosaurus also seem to brace one another.... and the vertebra are still high right at the occiput. The muscles there need to go somewhere... So it does look like the neck muscles of Giganotosaurus could have reached to between the lacrimals of the skull. In fact, they could have went to about a quarter of the way up in the rostral direction past the caudal end of the ant. orbital actually.... It's all in the angle I suppose. But then again.... Something about how the skull was mounted has always bothered me. It's low.... almost too low.... relative to the vertebrae. The spines almost look too high to be right. I wasn't able to see the actual atlas/axis complex, so I'm not sure what the story is. But regardless, from what I was able to see from the cervicals themselves, there is no doubt that Tyrannosaurus rex was able to flex it's neck more. In Giganotosaurus, they seem to have themselves linked together... one onto the other. This would have given the neck strength, but this doesn't mean well muscled. This also could have effected how the bite and pull method supposedly implemented by these theropods was actually carried out. Giganotosaurus might not have been able to wrench its head back with as much force as Tyrannosaurus rex could. The flexibility to do so just wasn't there. Sure, the neck of Giganotosaurus could have had a buffalo type look to it..... but with the above babble about the structure of the neck.... this doesn't equate to great biting force. Also, there is another reason... The epaxial muscles of the dorsal vertebrae. They would have had tendons. If they had enough height to them, these would have helped support the head if the neck was as short as we see it here in this mount, and if the head was in that orientation. In birds, the vertebrae from 3-4 up easily hold up the ones from behind with ossified tendons... and this really doesn't matter much. You have the same thing going on with the tails of Ornithischians. But, there is no reason to have ossification. All you need to have are overlapping tendons that would have formed a lattice network for hold things up just like a bridge. As we know, it's easier to hold something hanging then it is to hold it straight out. So, if the skull of Giganotosaurus hung there like in ! th! ! at mount, it was actually held up, with both the neck and the thoracic region playing a part in the endeavor.<<<< Now..... Part 2 has things I corrected from what I said above and I added and expanded a few ideas.... Kris |