Re.:Deinonychus critique ? A COUPLE OF COMMENTS...

["dinotracker" <dinotracker@earthlink.net>]

    In Donald Edward Rodenbaugh's nice drawing of a Deinonychus, there is
something in the reconstruction of pedal digit II (which holds the 'terrible
claw') that, IMO, needs changing:  As presented, one gets the impression
that digit II has only ONE phalanx and then the ungual phalanx. In reality
there are TWO phalanges, plus the ungual phalanx, because the phanangeal
counts of digits I through IV, respectively, are 1,2,3,and 4, not counting
an ungual phalanx.

    This reconstruction shortcoming (pun intended) yields an apparent
awkwardness to digit II, making it look as though the metatarsal articulates
with phalanx II, instead of with phalanx I, which seems nonexistent.

    The result is that the 'terrible claw' sits entirely too far back and is
rotated a bit too high.

    One further thought: If the seven Early Cretaceous tracks I have found
here in Maryland and attribute to a dromeosaurid (very possibly Deinonychus)
have been correctly attributed, then the narrow spacing that seems to exist
between digits II and IV in Donald's reconstruction might better be widened.
There has been a tendency by many artists to illustrate Deinonychus' digits
III and IV positioned very like those one sees in an Ostrich, but the tracks
I find here pretty well convince me that such a reconstruction is
substantially in error.

    For what it's worth,
    Ray Stanford

"You know my method.  It is founded upon the observance of trifles." --
Sherlock Holmes in The Boscombe Valley Mystery