RE: New paper on pre-Archaeopteryx coelurosaurian dinosaurs

[Jaime Headden <qi_leong@hotmail.com>]

And depends on the level to which you will push "hip height." A shorter tail 
for an oviraptorosaur, if the animal were like birds, would indeed make the 
femur a far less important element of the effective limb length (and therefore 
hip height). However, unlike birds, the femur is quite long compared to the 
rest of the body, and we would assume it was far more vertical than in, say, a 
pigeon or ostrich. As such, the effective limb length, despite the short tail 
(the tail is known, it IS short) would be closer to the total limb length than 
it would in a bird. Moreover, the animal was likely tilted upwards at the hip, 
would places the anterior ilium above the midlength height of the ilium, so if 
we really wanted to, iliac height increases the body profile above the hip 
quite significantly, unlike in, say, *Tyrannosaurus bataar.* 

Cheers,

Jaime A. Headden
The Bite Stuff (site v2)
http://qilong.wordpress.com/

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)


"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a
different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race
has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or
his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion 
Backs)





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> Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:51:39 +0200
> From: david.marjanovic@gmx.at
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: New paper on pre-Archaeopteryx coelurosaurian dinosaurs
>
> Rescued from truncation:
>
> > > That sums to 322.4 cm (assuming totally erect hindlimb posture,
> > > which of course is wrong). I can see where you'd add on a few extra
> > > cm for the cartilaginous joints, but a whole 80 cm?
> >
> > and please keep in mind that Senter and Robins (2010) assume less
> cartilage,
> > so you'd have to add some cm to *G.*, too. Assuming identical limb
> flexion
> > angles in both taxa, *G.* stays taller.
> > :)
> > Heinrich
>
> I'd assume a bit more limb flexion in *G.*, though, because as an
> oviraptorosaur it probably had a shorter tail.