Re: Claws on deinonychosaurs

[Chris Glen <s370548@student.uq.edu.au>]

At 01:27 PM 1/11/2005, Tim Williams wrote:
> Patrick Norton wrote:
>
> > When I think of how dromies may have used their enlarged pedal claws, I 
> > remember a cock fight I saw years ago in which gamecocks, each having a 
> > 2" recurved bladelike device called a gaff
> > affixed to their feet, were placed in a pen and allowed to fight.  In 
> > those fights, the birds >attacked one another viciously and expertly with 
> > their feet.  The primary killing tools in those fights were the gaffs 
> > which they used very effectively to slash one another to shreds, although
> > stabbing with the beak was also used. Incidentally, at the same time, the 
> > wings were used to aid in leaping attacks and to fluster the opponent. 
> > Some might say this is the result of training, but I was told that there 
> > is very little training required at all. The birds are abused and drugged to
> > increase their aggressiveness, but they take naturally to using the gaffs 
> > as killing tools.
>
> Sounds like fun for all the family.  And to think, all those wasted nights 
> I spent at home watching the tube - I could've been out witnessing a 
> bloodthirsty demonstration of animal cruelty.

Agreed, sounds nasty... Obviously this shouldn't be supported, but gleaning 
info from knowing that it occurs should be no worse than forensic 
scientists learning from violent crime (obviously, they don't support that 
activity either), though perhaps that's a tenuous link. (gee I wish I 
looked as cool as those CSI guys!).


> > All in all (absent the abuse and drugs), this seems to me like a 
> > reasonable model for how Dromies
> > used their equipment.
>
> The sickle-claw sounds like overkill (no pun intended) for intraspecific 
> combat.  It just so happens that in his Dinosaur Heresies book, Bob Bakker 
> has an illustration of two _Deinonychus_ engaged in combat in almost 
> exactly the same manner you describe - each with its sickle-claws deployed 
> to inflict damage upon the other.

This obviously leads into the topic of the evolution of safer intraspecific 
dueling adaptations, such as selection for locking horns rather than sharp 
stabbing horns in certain lineages of animals (particularly herbivores that 
live in large groups), though I'm no expert on this. I'm sure anyone into 
ceratopsians could add something here.

Cheers,
Chris



------------------------------------------------
Chris Glen
PhD candidate,
School of Biomedical Science
Anatomy and Developmental Biology Dept.,
University of Queensland
Q 4072, AUSTRALIA
Room: 418
Phone: (07) 3365 2720
Mob: 0408 986 301
Email: c.glen@.uq.edu.au
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Returning home after a hard day of
dodging dinosaur feet and droppings,
only to find their burrow trampled,
one Late Mesozoic mammal says to an other :
"Hey, a falling star, make a wish."