Re: New Papers in Manhattan

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

> Abstract: "Sauropod dinosaurs, the dominant herbivores throughout the 
> Jurassic, challenge general rules of large vertebrate herbivory.  With 
> body weights surpassing those of any other megaherbivore, they relied 
> almost exclusively on pre-angiosperm plants such as gymnosperms, ferns and 
> fern allies as food sources, plant groups that are generally believed to 
> be of very low nutritional quality.  However, the nutritive value of these 
> taxa is virtually unknown

LOL! Yet another case where people have simply believed something for 
generations without ever testing it! :-D I wonder how many more such 
assumptions there are out there.

"The worst math is no math at all."
-- Mark Chu-Carroll http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath

> Using a feed evaluation test for extant herbivores, we show that the 
> energy content of horsetails and of certain conifers and ferns is at a 
> level comparable to extant browse.

Cool.

> Based on our experimental results, plants such as _Equisetum_, 
> _Araucaria_, _Ginkgo_ and _Angiopteris_ would have formed a major part of 
> sauropod diets, while cycads, tree ferns and podocarp conifers would have 
> been poor sources of energy.  Energy-rich but slow-fermenting _Araucaria_, 
> which was globally distributed in the Jurassic, was probably targeted by 
> giant, high-browsing sauropods with their presumably very long ingesta 
> retention times.

Makes a lot of sense...

> The morphological basis of the arm-to-wing transition.  J. Hand Surg.

<Spock voice>Fascinating.</Spock voice>