Re: Guts-Eating Spinosaurs

["Fam Jansma" <fam.jansma@worldonline.nl>]

TIm Williams wrote:

>And meanwhile those long, well-muscled and sharp-clawed forelimbs dangle
uselessly by the spinosaur's side...

>(Hang on! - maybe _Spinosaurus_ used its forelimbs, rather than its jaws,
to >grasp and immobilize prey.)

Look at the Spinosaurus in JP3, I know, not the best reference to use, but
compare both the forelimb of the "running-skull" and the "croc-on-legs", who
do you think will win in a armwrestle? It's like Dennis Spade versus Arnold
Schwarzenegger. So the forelimbs in Spinosaurs were made to hold down
struggling prey, like T. rex evolved it's big jaws to do the same. If you
catch a fish it will go crazy and when you have a skull as delicate as the
one of a Spinosaur to catch a struggling fish, it would surely break. T.rex,
with it's reinforced skull, wouldn't have to worry about a struggling
Hadrosaur, since the skull is adapted to this kind of stress with it's
enormous bone-mass.

>The type of sediments they are found in + fish scales in the belly do not =
>definitely piscivorous and shore-living habits for spinosaurs.  It's
certainly possible, but we cannot *know* that it is true.

And who says he actually caught it by itself, no evidence for that either.
Maybe on a sunny day in England in the Cretaceous a Baryonyx was walking
near a shoreline and it spotted a big fish lying in the sand. I wouldn't
walk away from a free lunch, so why is a 10m long Baryonyx supposed to?

>I would think a huge, delicate sail sticking out of the vertebral column
would be an impediment when grappling with large prey.

If you catch the prey with your arms, the sail is way out of reach when your
dealing with 3ft fish. Look at cats play with mise, they hold the mouse down
on his had so it is immobelized. The sail would surely hold it's function
for intimidation, but to other members of the genus, like a warning: I'm
fishing here, buzz of!

>I know some vultures that might disagree with you on that point.

So true, so true

>Tim

Rutger Jansma (Mr. T.rex)