RE: New Tyrannosaurus paper

["Steve Brusatte" <dinoland@lycos.com>]

On Wed, 27 Feb 2002 19:15:31  
 Tracy L. Ford wrote:
>Fact, Tyrannosaurs rex's ilia are tightly oppressed, almost to a point where
>the sacral neural spines are crushed, more than any other theropod; meaning
>large muscles. Giganotosaurus doesn't have this. The cnemial crest on the
>tibia is HUGE. If the animal didn't move fast why have such a huge cnemial
>crest?

Yes, true.  A good comparison, therefore, would be the French ceratosaur (is it 
still classified as a "ceratosaur"?) _Genusaurus,_ which has whopping cnemial 
crests.  IIRC, there is enough material known of _Genusaurus_ to complete a 
Hutchinsonesque study.  I would be interested to see what the estimated speeds 
of _Genusaurus_ (with its huge cnemial crests) were, and how they compared to 
_Tyrannosaurus_.  

Hopefully, this paper will lead to much similar research involving all types of 
extinct animals.

Steve

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