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RE: DINOSAUR digest 3467

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> David Marjanovic
> Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 2:38 PM
> To: DML
> Subject: Re: DINOSAUR digest 3467
>
>
> > Myself I always imagined Oviraptor as medium-sized
> > sprinting predator, similar to cheetah.
>
> Cheetahs have much more extreme cursorial adaptations, don't they? Plus, the
> beak really looks all wrong for this...

Oviraptor has relatively short stocky legs for a coelurosaur of its size. It's 
on the dromaeosaurid end of things, not on the
avimimid-caenagnathid-troodontid-ornithomimid-tyrannosaurid part of the 
spectrum.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
        Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
        Mailing Address:
                Building 237, Room 1117
                College Park, MD  20742

http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796