Re: tumors & tracks

[Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>]

m.moser@lrz.uni-muenchen.de wrote:
> 
> Two new papers in Naturwissenschaften prepublished:
> 
> Among more than 10,000
> specimens x-rayed, tumors were only found in Cretaceous hadrosaurs
> (duck-billed dinosaurs). These included hemangiomas and metastatic cancer
> (previously identified in dinosaurs), desmoplastic fibroma, and
> osteoblastoma. The epidemiology of tumors in dinosaurs seems to reflect a
> familial pattern. A genetic propensity or environmental mutagens are
> suspected.

RAMPANT SPECULATION ALERT:

Apparently Tasmanian devils are developing facial tumours at an alarming
rate, which may be caused by a retrovirus spread by their tendancy to
bite each other on the face while feeding (since the tumours tend to eat
away at the tooth-bearing parts of the jaws, the animals often starve to
death).

With the tendancy for modern medical researchers to attribute a lot of
diseases to previously unsuspected pathogens (everything from stomach
ulcers to heart disease and cancer), perhaps hadrosaurs were similarly
afflicted by tumour-causing pathogens? Perhaps they developed tumours
from wounds inflicted by largely unsuccessful tyrannosaur predation? If
only one in ten prey items were caught successfully, that would leave a
lot of hadro's with nasty (and no doubt infectious) wounds.

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