Re: Regarding Spinosaurus

[Graydon <graydon@dsl.ca>]

On Mon, Jan 07, 2002 at 04:57:57PM -0600, Steve  Brusatte scripsit:
> On Mon, 7 Jan 2002 16:47:03   Graydon wrote:
> >Not particularly like vultures; I'm thinking that they were active
> >predators, but that they might have had an odd mode of feeding.  The
> >contents of the body cavity tend to the highest food value of any
> >part of the prey animal, and there's problems with using _all_ of a
> >carcass; it might make sense to specialize in getting the most
> >nutritional value from the kill before abandoning it, in preference
> >to defending it.  (Since that usually isn't actually worth the
> >effort, once you're full.)
> 
> Interesting idea.  I wish Marco Mendez was still onlist, as I'm sure
> he would have something to say.  I'll have to e-mail him later.
> Anyway, I like this idea.  Boy, it would sure throw a kink into
> Horner's hypotheses (wouldn't it be funny if his big, mean JPIII
> Spinosaurus turned out to be a scavenger and Tyrannosaurus a predator?
> :-))

Not a scavenger; a peculiar predator.

(But funny anyway, I think.)

With large mammals, once you've killed it, getting the guts out of it is
relatively strightforward; you go in through the stomach area, behind
the ribs.  With large herbivorous dinosaurs, the ribs go all the way
back, and that option isn't there.

Tyrannosaurs seem to have got round this by means of very powerful bite,
capable of crushing bones; there's no reason to suppose that a
tyranosaur couldn't *bite* through the ribs, or use some combination of
stand-and-pull to open them.

It seems plausible that different adaptations toward that same basic
purpose -- get at the guts -- would exist.

-- 
graydon@dsl.ca   |  Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
                 |  mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað.
                 |   -- Beorhtwold, "The Battle of Maldon"