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Re: How Did Hadrosaurs Survive? (Was: Hadrosaur "mummy" questions)


From: Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>
Reply-To: dannj@alphalink.com.au
To: DML <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Subject: Re: How Did Hadrosaurs Survive? (Was: Hadrosaur "mummy" questions)
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2002 07:01:38 +1100

Mike Taylor wrote:

> It's often bothered me that there seems to be
> an ecological imbalance in those late-Cretaceous days: how on earth
> did the hadrosaurs not _all_ get eaten by tyrannosaurs?  So far as we
> understand the morphology and its implications, the predators were
> faster, stronger and probably smarter than their prey: so what _could_
> a poor hadrosaur do once a tyrannosaur had decided to eat it?
>

Judging by skeletal structure alone, I'm guessing an adult hadrosaur
could outrun an adult tyrannosaur any day. "The King's" legs seem a bit
too gracile to carry them in a suspended phase for long, if at all.

Not according to Bakker and Paul, see PDW. Tyrannosaurs also had the advantage of more efficient avian-like respiration.


The 
hind limbs of hadrosaurs were good and robust, just what you'd need for
running faster and possible longer than a big theropod.

I certainly agree they fled, but not faster or longer, especially not lambeosaurines. 

--
________________________________________________________________

Dann Pigdon                   Australian Dinosaurs:
GIS / Archaeologist         http://www.geocities.com/dannsdinosaurs
Melbourne, Australia        http://www.alphalink.com.au/~dannj/
________________________________________________________________


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