Re: Spinosaurs as what?

[Renato Santos <dracontes@hotmail.com>]

Jason wrote:

> I was never a big follower of the "Spinosaurs are
> fish-eaters" hypotheses. As Suess et al have pointed
> out. They really don't show too many fish eating
> adaptations. I kind of viewed the lot as being snatch
> hunters (no gutter humour) in line with the more broad
> snouted crocodylians (though not quite as violent).

The way I figure it, spinosaurs would stalk the savannah, or rain forest, or 
woodlands, or whatever the environment was and scare up whichever animal of 
appropriate size was hiding in the bushes or crusing along unaware, snatch 
it up, give it a couple of turns over the symphyseal tooth rosette and then 
swallow it whole or in big chunks. I won't say they didn't eat fish but it's 
clear (or at least I'm pretty convinced) that they were more generalists 
than anything else.

> What would be really nice, would be if someone would
> do a study on the role of sails in extant animals
> (_Chamaeleo montium_, _Basiliscus_, _Hydrosaurus_).
> Admittedly, all these examples are smaller than the
> dinosaurs in question (but then, few things weren't).

_Chamaeleo montium_; Sexual dimorphism, the female hasn't horns or sail. 
http://www.habitatdesigns.tv/repcare/species/2horned.html
_Basiliscus_; The same as the two-horned chameleon. 
http://www.wildherps.com/species/B.basiliscus.html
_Hydrosaurus_; Idem. http://www.angelfire.com/biz/portagelagoon/sfcs.html

I won't say that the sail in these lizards hasn't other functions but being 
that only the male has the structure it's hard not to consider it so.

Renato Santos

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