Re: Solved (Re: T rex & smell)

[frank bliss <frank@blissnet.com>]

I originally thought Camptosaurs was limited to the Jurassic age and 
before the aforementioned Cretaceous pleasure plants but I now find 
reference to their presence in the early Cretaceous.

Gee, what other reasons could an organism develop a large olefactory 
system?  Let's see...: 1. Maybe the earlier thread is correct and they 
were stoners. 2. They might have used their enhanced sense of smell to 
stay away from carrion because of the likelihood of nearby predators.. 
3. Maybe they were always looking for a potential mate as I am sure a 
willing, in heat female Camptosaurus was not a common occurrence and 
they probably didn't have the drug for sex thing down yet.  (Thus the 
naming of Camptosaurus depressus {depression} and C dispar {an obvious 
reference to dispair!}). 4.  Maybe they sensed carbon dioxide 
concentrations like mosquitos (Subtle Jurassic Park reference there! ) 
and homed in on their favorite food. 5. Maybe they were really 
territorial and marked their place with scat or urine. 6. Maybe they 
used subtle scent detection to detect danger by sniffing the air for 
some bad actor hanging around. 7. Maybe water was scarce out of wet 
season and they used their nose like cattle to find distant water holes 
(coincidentally lush cycad et al vegetation by the water holes). 8. 
Maybe they used smell as an elaborate method of communication for 
showing emotional states by releasing pheremones. 9. Maybe they just 
liked the smell of rotting vegetation. 10. Maybe they used smell to 
differentiate other family members.  11. Maybe they were near sighted 
like a rhino and needed the extra sniffing sense to compensate. 12. 
Maybe all of the above.  What ever the answer(s), there were obviously 
selective pressures toward the development of a good sniffer and 
obvious adaptive benefits toward such a characteristic as is obvious by 
the expression of the adaptation.  Anything I missed?

Frank Bliss
MS Biostratigraphy
Weston, Wyoming

P.S.
I never considered a College Fraternity House for an environmental 
model in the Cretaceous! What was I thinking???? No wonder I find body 
fossils left strewn haphazardly around my ranch. Nobody around here was 
neat back then.  Obviously, Ornithopods were lousy parents.

On Dec 5, 2004, at 10:39 AM, Phil Bigelow wrote:

> > Having just finished the endocast of Camptosaurus, it
> > has huge olfactories as well. In fact, they are twice as wide as the
> > brain portion. We could argue as to why an ornithopod has such well
> > developed sense of smell, but obviously there is more to it than
> > locating carrion.
>
>
> The purpose of the well-developed olfactory bulbs on a dino herbivore 
> was
> to facilitate the location of the closest marijuana fields and to 
> zero-in
> on any nearby sources of opium-producing plants.
>
> Cretaceous Cannabaceae? (Johnson) type specimens: YPM 6203, YPM 6204, 
> YPM
> 6205.
>
> Cretaceous member of the poppy family: _Palaeoaster inquirenda_(Smith).
> TYPE. YPM-6131
>
> YPM = Yale-Peabody Museum specimen numbers.
>
> Clearly, _T. rex_ was a lazy scavenger, and ornithopods were a bunch of
> Mesozoic druggies.  A modern analog for this paleoecosystem is a 
> college
> fraternity house.  All artistic reconstructions of both Cretaceous
> landscapes and dinosaurs should use a color scheme that Jerry Garcia
> would have approved of.  Tie-dyed color patterns for dino integument
> would be appropriate.
>
> <pb> (who has personally witnessed intoxicated bluejays flying into the
> sides of barns after they ate fermented berries.  Not a pretty sight).
> --