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Tyrannosaur #1 pedal digit and hollow bones
It seems that every mount of _Tyrannosaurus_ I have seen gives these
tyrannosaurids reversed #1 pedal phalanxes, so that the first toe (the
one off the ground) opposes the other three toes as in perching birds
(though off the ground, so there could not be a grasping function). Is
this, in fact, how the phalanges articulate with the foot, or is it
impossible to tell?
Do other non-avian dinosaurs share this configuration? I had assumed
that the tyrannosaur mounts were wrong, but if not I should like to find
this out. If this is an error, it certainly is a common one (right up
there with absent furculae).
Question two: which of _T. rex_'s bones were hollow, and does this mean
that these bones were likely air filled in life, and connected to the
air sacs?
----------Ralph W. Miller III
ralph.miller@alumni.usc.edu