Re: Albertosaurus libratus questions

[Graydon <graydon@dsl.ca>]

On Tue, Mar 12, 2002 at 05:42:42PM -0500, Nicholas Gardner sent:
> >Anyone got any idea why the picket fence pre-maxillary teeth?
> 
> Grooming.  How about grooming?  Sounds good to me.  The thought hit me 
> awhile back in November.  Maybe for grooming of feather tufts in the skin.  
> I was also thinking beaks at the same time.  Although, I was thinking it 
> for another reason.

Grooming with incisors takes top and bottom ones; these would be fine
for the top, only there aren't any bottom ones, that's the usual
theropod jaw with the loosely linked dentaries forming a V shape.  I
can't think of any way that grooming with just the top of the jaw would
work; the teeth are too closely spaced to be imagined as a comb.

I can almost picture use as a flesh-scraper, to get meat out of
convexities of a carcass, but that would have to be almost purely a neck
motion and it doesn't seem entirely worth it, engergetically or
evolutionarily.

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