RE: tyrannosaurid feeding ecology

["Ken Carpenter" <KCarpenter@dmns.org>]

email me direct (not the list) if you want a PDF of this article. By the way, 
some of you who have Hotmail, I tried to send it to you previously, but it 
bounced back as undeliverable - too bad.

Kenneth Carpenter, Ph.D.
Curator of Lower Vertebrate Paleontology &
Chief Preparator
Dept. of Earth Sciences
Denver Museum of Natural History 
2001 Colorado Blvd.
Denver, CO 80205

Phone: (303)370-6392
Fax: (303)331-6492
email: KCarpenter@DMNS.org

>>> "Ken Carpenter" <KCarpenter@dmns.org> 04/Aug/03 >>>
well fine. Since everyone is tooting their horn:

Carpenter, K. 1998. Evidence of predatory behavior by carnivorous dinosaurs. 
Gaia 15: 135-144.

describes the bitten hadrosaur tail.

Kenneth Carpenter, Ph.D.
Curator of Lower Vertebrate Paleontology &
Chief Preparator
Dept. of Earth Sciences
Denver Museum of Natural History 
2001 Colorado Blvd.
Denver, CO 80205

Phone: (303)370-6392
Fax: (303)331-6492
email: KCarpenter@DMNS.org 

>>> "Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu> 04/Aug/03 >>>
Back from the Great White North, and adding my two cents:

> From: James Farlow [mailto:farlow@ipfw.edu] 
>
> The most recent critical review of Horner's scavenging Tyrannosaurus
> hypothesis that I know about was published just last year by the Good
> Doctor Holtz and myself:
>
> J.O. Farlow and T. R. Holtz, Jr., 2002, The fossil record of predation
> in dinosaurs; pp. 251-265 in M. Kowalewski and P.H. Kelley, eds. The
> Fossil Record of Predation, Paleontological Society Papers Volume 8.
>
> Brother Holtz also published a solo article on this matter in a book
> about predation and fossils, the details of which I don't have at hand,
> but can be supplied by him.

It is:
Holtz, T.R., Jr. 2003. Dinosaur predation: evidence and ecomorphology. Pp.
325-340, in P.H. Kelley, M. Kowalewski and T.A Hansen (eds.), Predator-Prey
Interactions in the Fossil Record, Topics in Geobiology Vol. 20. Kluwer
Press.

> Though it's tough to be completely objective here, I thought we did a
> pretty good job of challenging the data and the logic upon which Jack
> bases his hypothesis.  For one thing, even though it is true that
> Tyrannosaurus had beady little eyes in comparison with the orbit
> size-skull size ratio seen in small theropods, its eye size (as
> estimated from orbit anteroposterior diameter) relative to skull length
> is actually quite large compared with other kinds of living and fossil
> reptilian predators.  Tyrannosaurus' orbit is as large or larger,
> relative to skull length, as those of Deinosuchus, Sarcosuchus, and
> other very big theropods.
>
> There is more in our argument than this, but have a look at our paper.
>
> Harrumph and amen.

Indeed!

I'll add that I do have a more detailed technical paper in prep about this
(originally intended for the DinoFest 1998 volume...), and in the realm of
kiddie lit, the forthcoming "T. rex-Hunter or Scavenger?" from Random House,
out later this year.  (The answer: both).

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm 
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite 
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu 
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796