Re: Rapator,the giant alvarezsaur

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

Brian Lauret wrote:
> 
> I'm sure we all know about the extraordinary possibility of Rapator being an
> alvarezsaur and I find this very interesting. While later alvarezsaurs are
> usually considered myrmecophages, I wonder: Is Rapator considered one as
> well?If so,could this 6 m. long giant living in an environment that was in
> permanent darkness for part of the year survive on termites?? I personally
> find this very unlikely and I wonder if others do think this is possible. If
> not,did it perhaps stab small prey (ornithopods,for example) to death with
> it's monoclawed hands?

I like to imagine giant alvarezsaurids like huge Maribu storks (or
Australia's Jabiru stork, with a confusingly similar name). Perhaps
alvarezsaurids started off large, mainly using sharp stabbing beaks (or
proto-beak structures), during which their forelimbs atrophied (similar
to what may have happened in tyrannosaurs). Later, if conditions
favoured smaller alvarezsaurs, their forelimbs may have evolved into as
functional a set of tools as was possible, given what they had to work
with.

Of course, there's nothing to stop smaller alvarezsaurids from living
much like storks do (well, apart from the whole extinction thing, which
has limited their behaviour significantly in recent years). People seem
to place a lot of emphasis on their forelimbs alone, as if their entire
behavioural repatoir must have accounted for them. They had other body
parts as well...

-- 
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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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