Re: dino-lice

[Tim Williams <tijawi@gmail.com>]

Jason Brougham <jaseb@amnh.org> wrote:


> But really almost any adaptation in the mouthparts will function in feeding.


You need to get out more often.  ;-)


> So, once more, any examples of a vertebrate that has undergone extreme 
> reduction of its limbs while those limbs continued to serve a (or served an 
> increasingly important), direct, function in obtaining
> food.
>
> I don't mean leg reduction while they still walked up to the food. I mean in 
> performing functions on the food source that allow them to feed on it. That 
> means cracking nuts, cutting carcasses, scraping
> algae, whatever.


Maybe alvarezsaurs were unique in this regard.  They really were
oddball creatures - and I say that with affection.



Cheers

Tim