Re: Oviraptor=Parrot?

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sim Koning" <simkoning@msn.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 8:43 AM

> I think you may have missed Dann's post on parrots such as the Kea. I 
> wasn't
> aware that some parrot species are highly opportunistic and will eat just
> about anything, including live vertebrates! While the jaws of these birds
> are designed primarily for a herbivory, they can also be used for 
> predation.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kea

But then, the kea has a long, curved, pointed, separately mobile upper bill, 
unlike any oviraptorosaur for which enough of the skull is known.

> A parrot's beak is designed to crush
> things so that is can get to whatever is inside.

The function of peeling fruits and seeds is at least as important. (And it's 
one that I can't imagine an oviraptorosaur doing.)

> Since hyenas lack beaks and look nothing like an Oviraptor, I think it's
> safe to say that their diets were probably not all that similar.

Oviraptorosaur skulls do look a lot weaker, but the lack of a beak in hyenas 
is probably entirely meaningless -- therian mammals (marsupials, placentals 
etc.) are most likely incapable of evolving a beak because they've lost the 
caruncle (the keratinous non-egg-tooth).

> > durophage is to potentially ignore that oviraptorids are extinct, are not
> > birds, and we must stick to the morphological and taphonomic data.
>
> Actually one could argue that Oviraptors are a flightless type of bird,
> depending at how you look at it I guess.

It depends mostly on how you define "bird". But we can tell for sure that 
oviraptorosaurs are outside Neornithes, the group that includes all birds 
living today; so if today's birds all do one thing, that's no evidence for 
the idea that oviraptorosaurs didn't do something completely different.