Re: Medullary Bone Distribution in Archosaurs

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

Jura writes:
>>>> Do we know anything about the presence or absence of medullary
>>>> bone in Sauropods, Pterodactyles, or the bird-hip dinosaurs
>>>> (ducksbills, ceratopsians, etc.)?
>>> 
>>> Unknown until someone breaks a couple of sauropod and
>>> ornithischian bones in hopes of finding original cellular
>>> material.
>> 
>> Sounds like a project for somebody, maybe PHD paper?
> 
> Possibly. I sure wouldn't want to be the one having to
> write the research proposal for that one.
> 
> "In order to determine medullary bone presence in
> other members of Dinosauria, it is necessary to look
> for the presence of preserved original cellular
> material. In order to do this, the rending of limb
> bones in the more common members of the Hell Creek
> Sauropodan and Ornithischian fauna, would need to be
> done."

There are loads of broken sauropod long-bones out there: anything that
big is subject to big weight stresses, and tends to break easily.
It's just that people keep gluing 'em together.  Matt Wedel, being a
pneumaticity specialist, feels that intact sauropod vertebrae are much
less interesting then broken ones ... so keep him away from your
collections!  :-)

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor    <mike@indexdata.com>    http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a
         neural reaction from either patient!" -- Jayne Cobb.