Re: Tyrannosaur tongues?

[Rodlox R <rodlox@hotmail.com>]

> From: Jura <pristichampsus@yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: pristichampsus@yahoo.com
> To: Subject: Re: Tyrannosaur tongues?
> Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 14:49:19 -0800 (PST)

> --- Rodlox R <rodlox@hotmail.com> wrote:

> > Did members of the *Tyrannosauridae* have tongues
> > like modern crocs, fully
> > attached to the lower jaw?...were they like the
> > breathing tongues of
> > snakes?....were they flexible and muscular like what
> > parrots use to talk?
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Offhand, I don't know of any evidence that suggests
> anything about tyrannosaur tongues (other than that,
> they had them).

I didn't know anything either...but I knew enough to know that I didn't 
know...so I asked.


> As tyrannosaurs were probably not semi-aquatic, I
> doubt they had fused tongues ala crocs.

hrm...I didn't know that it was the tongue doing that in crocs...I'd thought 
it was a valve of some sort.  (I saw it in action on National Geographic, 
but the narrator was busy talking about the bite pressures).


> They probably just had the typical fleshy tongues seen
> in iguanian lizards (barring extreme adaptations),
> turtles and carnivorous mammals.

 if I might ask, what does 'extreme adaptations' in this case mean?


> =====
> "I am impressed by the fact that we know less about many modern [reptile] 
> types than we do of many fossil groups." - Alfred S. Romer