RE: dinosaurs did eat grass

[Guy Leahy <xrciseguy@sbcglobal.net>]

This discovery could be interpreted as consistent with
reconstuctions of sauropod neck mobility by Kent
Stevens.
This suggests that titanosaurs, at least, typically
browsed at shoulder height or below.  The occurrence
of grass phytoliths in a coprolite would not be
expected in an animal which was a giraffe-like high
browser... :-)

Guy Leahy

--- "Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>
wrote:

> > From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu
> [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> > Jeff Hecht
> >
> > A paper in this week's Science reports the latest
> Cretaceous titanosaurs were eating grass. I didn't
> believe it at first
> > either, but here's what I found
> >
> > http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8336
> 
> I haven't seen the paper itself yet (although maybe
> up online now), but the brief reports in Nature's
> online news section and BBC's
> news site show a pretty convincing phytolith.
> 
> Now if we can extend the grasses back to the Early
> Cretaceous (at least in western Gondwana) we might
> FINALLY make sense of
> Nigersaurus and the rebbachisaurids in general:
> white rhino analogues...
> 
>               Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
>       Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
> Department of Geology         Director, Earth, Life & Time
> Program
> University of Maryland                College Park Scholars
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>               Building 237, Room 1117
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> 
> http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
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> 
>