Re: Noasaurids (Re: Late Triassic Footprints with Reversed Hallux)

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

Mike Keesey (keesey@bigfoot.com and mightyodinn@yahoo.com) wrote:

  [on "antiarctometatarsalian" ... as put, a mouth full]

<There has got to be a better word for that. What's the opposite of
"arcto-" ("pinched")?>

  Well, actually ... _arctos_ or the Latin version _arctus_ does not mean
pinched, that's _urgeo_ (to pinch); the word means more close to being
closed off or narrowed, but it is the general idea. Sorry. The opposite
would be either _plesion_ (plesio-) for "broad" or _latus_ (lato-)for
"wide", or _extendere_ or _dilatare_ for "to expand." aside from maybe the
second suggestion, all the others would add syllables to a mouthful word,
not that it's not descriptive, it is indeed. The condition might be better
expressed in the actual morphology of the metatarsi: in noasaurids in
general, the thgird metatarsal is not expanded to any degree -- it is the
outer and inner metatarsals that are narrowed at midshaft and reduced;
"ectarctometatarsalian" for the narrowed non-third metatarsals would be a
suggestion, therefore.

  Cheers,

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

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