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The New Mexico plagiarism debacle.

Posted on 4 February, 2008 23:09 by Jura Comment

To kick off day two of this 30 day romp, I thought it would be pertinent to write about the whole NM aetosaur “who named what, first” drama. For those who haven’t been following what’s been going on; Nature ran a news article a few days ago that brought to light the apparent seedy practices going on at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Though Nature’s article only recently brought this to the public’s attention, this practice had been known of and talked about for almost 2 years now.Paleontologist, Mike Taylor, along with grad student Jeff Martz of Texas Tech, and William Parker of Petrified National Forest, Arizona, have found themselves at the heart of a drama they never intended to get in. As documented on his site, the folks at the NMMNHS (in particular: Dr. Spencer Lucas), have apparently been stealing the hard earned work of others, in an effort to pad their own resumes. It has been mentioned (anecdotally) that Dr. Lucas had made a personal goal of publishing more papers than Edward Drinker Cope (who currently holds “the record” at 1200). In my mind, this is an honorable goal to reach for, but if it means cutting corners and releasing work that is either not publish worthy, or outright stolen, then it seems to defeat the purpose. In science, quantity of published work is a distant second to its quality.

So, did Lucas and company do this on purpose, or was this just a glaring oversight on their part? Were they just being overzealous? To date, that question remains unanswered. Still, it is telling that Lucas and co have yet to respond to Mike, Jeff, Bill, Matt or Darren. The only official response has been from the first (and currently only) mass media mention of this (one has to sit through a quick commercial to read the article). In the article, Lucas denies any wrongdoing.

Even more disturbing, especially in terms of future ramifications, is the fact that Spencer Lucas is one of the editors on the NMMNHS bulletin; a forum that he uses a lot to publish his findings. In the land of academia, this is a big no no. By submitting official technical papers to a journal that he has some (if not all) content control of, Lucas is able to bypass a portion of the peer review process (basically, the final say on whether or not a paper gets published at all), and pump papers out way faster than average. That isn’t to say that Spencer Lucas and his colleagues at the NMMNHS are using the bulletin for this purpose. This investigation is still in its infancy, so I’m reserving final judgment until then.

That said, all the accumulated evidence so far (including anecdotal statement from folks who have worked around Dr. Lucas) seems pretty damning. At the very least, it looks to make the NMMNHS bulletin no longer a peer reviewed (and thus respectable) body of work.

There is not much more that I can add here that hasn’t been documented far better on Mike Taylor’s, or Darren Naish’s respective websites.

What I will say, is that having spent a fair amount of time in the state of New Mexico, I am not surprised to see that Mike and co. are having as rough a time as they are in trying to seek retribution. New Mexico bureaucrats have a tendency to “protect their own.” If one is a local, or close enough to it (i.e. one has lived their for 10 years, or more, and has established a good reputation with the locals), then one is given free rein to do whatever the heck one feels like, without worry of getting caught. This has allowed many folks to get away with everything from bribing local food inspectors, hiring illegal immigrants, dealing drugs out of the back of the local convenience store and so forth.

The Shaffer Hotel. Once owned by a lady whose blatant mishandling of money resulted in the IRS taking the property away. She was later given a job at one of the local banks!

It doesn’t help that the state is fairly desperate for attention. Having the chance to boast about having a scientist who has published the most papers of any other scientists in the world, or housing a bulletin that sees the largest growth in published work of any other journal in the country, is just the kind of thing that would cause folks in the political arena to overlook the ethical ramifications, in favour of bragging rights. After all, these are the same people who gave us the Albuquerque Isotopes.

Finally, I find it disappointing that in a year’s time, aetosaurs, which were these awesome crurotarsan beasts, will now be known mostly for this whole debacle.

Maybe someone can do a documentary about these guys, to help with their PR.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged aetosaurs claim jumping controversy new mexico museum of natural history and science plagiarism spencer lucas
30 Days

Posted on 3 February, 2008 19:30 by Jura Comment

Okay, so I originally intended this to start on February 1st, but I wanted to get WordPress updated first. Having surfed internet, and dealt with web design for over a decade now, I’ve had the opportunity to watch as fads come and go. I’ve also had the chance to see exactly what it is that creates a following. In the case of blogs, webcomics and podcasts, content may be key, but consistency is just as important. One can have the most amazing blog in the world, but if it is only updated once a year, then there won’t be much of a following behind it.This brings me to my site. The rate at which I’m putting up new content is just this shy of pathetic (I do have many more reptile pages in the works, I’m just short of pictures, design and time). The blog/what’s new is doing pretty well though. Last week I decided that one thing I could do to help the site, would be to post more often. The problem I have is that, contrary to what the length of these contributions would assume, I really don’t have much to talk about. This makes it hard for me to want to log on and make a post.In other words it’s writer’s block.

So I thought that the best way for me to overcome this writer’s block and get this blog really up and running, is if I presented a challenge to myself. In this case, the challenge is simple:

“Spend 30 days writing at least one post per day.”

So I’m going to give it a shot. From today, the 3rd of February, to 3rd March, I will be posting something new every day. It might be a short “meh” post, or a series of titanic rants about Cheetos, or something. Either way, there will be at least one new thing here during this time span. Hopefully by the end of the run, I will have gotten used to daily writing, and this whole blogging idea will become a little more palatable for me.

So stay tuned. There’s more to come.

~Jura

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged 30 days blogging the challenge
WordPress update

Posted on 3 February, 2008 19:01 by Jura Comment

I finally got around to updating WordPress to the latest version. It was a little nail-biting at first. I followed the upgrade steps meticulously. After a couple of steps, though, I realized that this is actually pretty stupid easy. The entire process took about 10 minutes (most of that was waiting for things to delete, or upload).

As is typical, not much has changed on the outset. The backroom is nicer though. It’s easier to add tags, and there is now a tab that lets me switch between the visual layout, and the more useful code layout (very helpful for removing the bloat code that wordpress likes to stick in all the posts).

Anyway, there you go. Just a minor update to the site, and mostly for my benefit.

~Jura

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged site update wordpress
Gharials dying

Posted on 28 January, 2008 21:12 by Jura Comment

Gharials are dying from a mysterious disease.

I have been meaning to talk a bit about this one for a few days now. Getting around to doing this blog has been a bit of a hassle for me. I’m still not quite used to the whole “update often” format.Anywho, it appears that a group of gharials in a river sanctuary in India were dying from some enigmatic disease. Whatever the pathogen was/is, it appears to affect the liver and kidneys. So, the pathogen seems blood based then. Current thoughts seem to focus on pollution from the nearby Yamuna river. The animals may have eaten some badly contaminated fish.The end result has been the unfortunate demise of 50 animals so far. Given the critically endangered status of Gavialis gangeticus (they only live in India), setbacks like these are always a big deal. Hopefully this will turn out to be a localized event, and not a contagion.

~ Jura

This entry was posted in Crocodylia Uncategorized
Saw Cloverfield

Posted on 20 January, 2008 23:29 by Jura Comment

So did it live up to the hype? In my opinion: yes.

Early on during the marketing for the film, there was some worry that this might wind up like Snakes on a Plane and just end up biting its own tail. Thankfully that never happened.

The goal for this review is to keep things spoiler free. Part of the fun of Cloverfield is in maintaining the mystery. With that said, let’s see what I can report.

For starters, this is the only film I’ve been to that had a warning placed in the theatre. The warning stated that due to the nature of the cinematography, there was a chance that people could suffer motion sickness. The movie folks aren’t kidding either. There was a lot of shaky cam in this film. Some of the shakes in the beginning came off very fake (it’s like they gave the camera to a monkey. Perhaps a drunk monkey). Those were by far the worst. After that, the cinematography became a lot more realistic and tolerable. Thankfully this film runs only 80 minutes long, so one does not have to require a stomach of steel to make it through. Which is not to say that I ever felt sick during the film (unsettled at times, but never sick). Then again, I can play first person shooters with no problem too; so there.

I had no complaints with the actors. They played their parts well. No one was really memorable, but then they weren’t the “star” of the film anyway, so it didn’t really matter. J.J. Abrams and his crew made a point of keeping the witty one liners down to a minimum. While some people might argue the believability of the choices that some of the characters made, I didn’t really see the main characters do anything that I wouldn’t have done in that same situation. Cloverfield also had some of the most realistic military I’d ever seen in a giant monster movie (not a high bar, I know). The military personnel actively tried to help people, and never tried to stifle information about the monster, or what their plans were. That was a nice change of pace from the more X-Files centric view that tends to pervade these movies.

So what of the crux of the film? How did the “star” pan out?

I have to say; I really enjoyed the look and feel of this monster. I don’t want to give away what it looked like, but I will say that Cthulhu fans and Silent Hill fans should be pleased. The beast gave off a menacing, surreal aura, whilst emitting these haunting sounds as it moved about. This gave it a nice creepy presence that I have never felt with any other giant monster before.

As for the shooting style, it’s a mixed bag for me. I like the approach that J.J. Abrams took with this film. That said, I don’t enjoy shaky cam “doc-style” at all. I find it annoying, and I believe it takes one out of the film because it makes a point of telling the audience that there is a camera man there. For Cloverfield, though, these complaints were moot. We know that there is a camera man in this film, so the “doc-style” made perfect sense. This was one of the very few times where I have found the shaky cam to actually add to the immersion of the film. Another plus to this style was that it forced all the special effects to be almost entirely background based. That is to say, there were very few set-up shots for the CG. This, in my opinion, made the effects all the more realistic. There were no scenes of people running to designated spots to look up at a creature that they knew was going to be drawn in later. Instead, we saw people going bat-shit crazy and the effects artists, having to subtly insert their effects within these sloppy camera sweeps. By doing this, the effects meshed with the film much better, and added to the sense of immersion. Two scenes particular really showed this off. One was on the Brooklyn bridge, while the other was on the street with the military. There was also a very memorable scene in the subways that not only felt real, but was genuinely creepy.

As for complaints, I really don’t have much. Folks who are used to the classic storytelling formula will not be happy with how this film wraps up. The writers leave a lot of the film to audience imagination. I liked this approach. One of the problems with many of the movies out these days (especially in the action/horror/thriller genre) is that they explain too much. I hate it when movies talk down to me. Cloverfield never talked down to me. That isn’t to say that there weren’t some predictable moments in the film (e.g. the helicopter scene, or the nightvision scene), it’s just that the film never took a moment to pull me aside and explain the obvious. It never pulled out that one narrative tool that is almost always used…badly. You know the tool. The really annoying one that always feels out of place because so few writers can do it right.

What was it again?

Oh yeah, exposition!

This was a film that was devoid of almost any exposition. There was a lot that was never explained. This was a good thing! There was no explanation behind the origin of this critter. There were no points in time when the military sat folks down to explain what they knew about it. For that, I am thankful. By not explaining as much as they did (or is that: didn’t?), one was forced to put much of the backstory together with one’s imagination.

As strange as it sounds, this was a monster movie that might actually stimulate one’s brain. How neat is that?

Now there were moments that almost took me out of the film. For starters, the story is told through a single camera. This camera is an amazing – near magical – piece of engineering. It got the crap beat out of it, and still it ran fine. Dust and debris had no effect on the sensors and the battery was stellar. This battery kept going throughout the entire film with nary a stutter. Besides the camera, I also had to work a bit to maintain my disbelief when it came to the cast of characters. It was genuinely hard to believe that a group of hapless folks stuck in Manhattan could run into so many close calls with a multi-story beast running amok. It would have been nice if the filmmakers decided to incorporate multiple videos scattered throughout Manhattan instead of relying on this single video. Then there was the scene involving a dangerously placed piece of rebar and the remarkable healing ability of one character. Finally, there was the opening scene. I get that the filmmakers needed to establish a sense of where we were, but the party scene went on for too long. Most of the folks one saw were extras, and even the main characters didn’t really matter much (they mostly just served to keep us grounded in the story).

Short of these minor flaws, the movie was all that I had hoped it would be.

So now we are left with the final question. Did J.J. Abrams and co. succeed in their attempt to revitalize the giant monster movie genre?

I suppose that only the box office results will truly tell. In my opinion, though, it does. For the first time ever, we are given a “victim’s” point of view of what it would be like when a giant monster attacks. Forcing the effects team to work within the confines of a handycam was a brilliant choice, as it resulted in a much more realistic presentation of the CGI. I’m hoping other movie makers take note of this fact, and incorporate more subtle CG into their films, rather than the current gaudy style we’ve been seeing.

Though it will never shake comparisons with Blair Witch, Cloverfield is nonetheless a successfully fresh new take on how to do a monster movie. I highly recommend this film to monster movie fans, horror fans and thriller fans alike. I also recommend it to anyone who enjoys it when movies shake up the tried and true blockbuster formula.

Enough of my babbling, go see it.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized
“Dakota” and National Geographic

Posted on 5 December, 2007 2:13 by Jura Comment

This upcoming Sunday (9th December), National Geographic is going to be airing a special devoted to the dinosaurs (and other interesting critters) of the Junggar basin. The overall information conveyed should be interesting. The less than stellar CG models should not. Seriously, in the land of dino docs, National Geographic has got to have the smallest budget. Whatever though, it’s a documentary. The actual look shouldn’t matter all that much.

That said, be prepared to hear a lot of nonsensical roaring. Oh, and seeing Guanlong with an idiotic mane.

The second part of the special deals with a finding here in the states. A hadrosaur by the name of: Dakota. The species has yet to be worked out, but that’s not so important as the fossil itself. Dakota represents the most complete dinosaur ever.

Think about that…ever.

See Dakota is a mummy. Not the Egyptian kind (obviously), but the same basic premise. Basically this hadrosaur wound up getting buried in anoxic material faster than any bacteria had a chance to degrade it. Not only does Dakota preserve skin (which many other hadrosaur mummies have done), but it also preserved muscle tissue, and tendons. Who knows, there might even be some viscera in there.

Everything is still pretty hush hush until after the NG special. All that’s really been released so far is that the evidence from the mummy shows that dinosaurs were much longer than previously thought, and that Dakota had a far more muscular hind end than anyone imagined. This extra muscle has been (speculatively) translated into faster running speed for hadrosaurs. The current media blitz has everyone believing that hadrosaurs could outrun Tyrannosaurus rex. To be honest, that is taking the speculation a bit too far. This data is interesting for what it tells us about hadrosaurs. It doesn’t really say much about T.rex.

That said, I don’t really see a problem with the thought of hadrosaurs being faster. Despite what all the T.rex fanboys would have the world believe, T.rex was just another predator. Like most predators it probably had a kill ratio that was pathetically low (i.e. it lost most of what it hunted). There’s nothing wrong with that. Hadrosaurs evolved with tyrannosaurs throughout their geological history. If tyrannosaurs were so good that they “got one” every time, then it wouldn’t seem very likely that hadrosaurs would have lasted as long as they did.

Plus, there were a whole lot of hadrosaurs back then.

Anyway, this is my heads up for folks who don’t know. The air date is December 9th at 9 EST (8 C/P). That’s all American time. For the rest of the world, feel free to adjust GMT to your respective times.

For more on the whole show, check out NG’s official site for it:

Dino Death Trap

This entry was posted in Dinosaurs Uncategorized
Intelligent Design on trial

Posted on 16 November, 2007 18:30 by Jura Comment

As for science versus religion, I?m issuing a restraining order: Religion must stay 500 yards from science at all times.

This is yet another case of me coming to the party a bit late. I can’t even blame my connection quandaries anymore, as I am now up and running 24/7. I guess I haven’t yet got the hang of this whole “blog” thing. Anyway, on Tuesday (13th Nov) NOVA aired their special on the infamous Dover case. They went over the causes that lead up to it, as well as what was at stake.Though I missed the chance to let folks know about this ahead of time, I can let you guys know that PBS has made the entire show available online.

Just head to:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/program.html.

The special is two hours long, and broken up into 12 chapters. Apparently the ID folks were not happy with the treatment that NOVA was going to give the special (i.e. an objective one), so few proponents agreed to be interviewed. That stance certainly isn’t going to do anything helpful for their cause.

So if you are curious about the whole debate, or are active in it, check out the program. It’s worth watching.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized
Paleo-ecological snapshot

Posted on 10 November, 2007 20:06 by Jura Comment
Who ate who. From NationalGeographic.com
Rare is the event when the fossil record records a case of animal behaviour. More often than not, this is recorded as footprints. Every once in a while though, we get lucky and find a case of actual animals doing what they were doing prior to death.The most famous case of this is the fighting dinosaurs of Mongolia. This is the fossil featuring a Protoceratops andrewsi attacking and being attacked by a Velociraptor mongoliensis. This was easily the best fossil of this type that scientists had ever found. That is until now.

First Food Chain Fossil.
Paleontologists at the Berlin museum of natural history have unearthed the remains of a a fossil “shark” that ate an “amphibian” that ate a fish.

The reason for all the quotation marks is due to the fact that all three of these critters represent animals that no longer exist, and were not true members of Selachimorpha (sharks), Amphibia, or osteichthys. The “shark” that was found, was a xenacanthid. This makes it a cartilaginous fish (Chondrychthys), but it’s no more a shark than it is a skate, or a ray. The other animal (well animals, since there were two that were eaten) were temnospondyls. Temnospondyls were a highly successful group of critters that hold the distinction of being one of the first land dwelling tetrapods (think: Eryops). Whether, or not they can be considered amphibians, seems to depend on how far back in time one is willing to call critters amphibians. In the very simplified evolutionary view of life (i.e. classic cartoon version), then yes, any animal between a fish and a reptile is going to be an amphibian. In the more complicated, bushy version of evolution (i.e. what actually happened) calling temnospondyls amphibians gets kind of weird. For instance, temnospondyls apparently had dermal scales, much like fish. Scales are nonexistent in extant amphibians (save caecililans, so maybe this isn’t so weird), so calling temnospondyls amphibians doesn’t really sit well with me. Then again, if I were a science journalist, I’d have to figure out how to explain temnospondyls to a lay public, and to do it with a finite amount of space.
But I digress…

Along with the two temnospondyls in the stomach of the xenacanthid “shark,” we also have a “fish” inside one of the temnospondyls. Okay, so “fish” has been a wastebin term for some time now. As such, one could technically say that it is okay to call the animal inside the temnospondyl, a fish. I’d just point out that the fish that was eaten, was an acanthodian. These were an interesting, but enigmatic group of earlly fish that broke off from the line that lead to the osteichthyans. They weren’t cartilaginous fish, but they didn’t give rise to anything alive today either.

The reason this fossil rocks (no pun intended) is because it shows one animal eating another animal, and then getting eaten by yet another animal. It reminds me of an old Looney Tunes cartoon. This tri-level trophic event is rare to see in living creatures, so one can imagine the chances for a one in a million fossil. Making matters even more interesting, this tri-level trophci event involves groups of animals that aren’t alive today. It’s a true snapshot of a bygone time.
Completely awesome find.
For those looking to read more about it, I’ve included the abstract to the official paper:

Kriwet, J., Witzmann, F., Klug, S., Heidtke, H.J. 2007. First direct evidence of a vertebrate three-level trophic chain in the fossil record. Proc. Royal Soc. B. Early published online. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2007.1170

Abstract

We describe the first known occurrence of a Permian shark specimen preserving two temnospondyl amphibians in its digestive tract as well as the remains of an acanthodian fish, which was ingested by one of the temnospondyls. This exceptional find provides for the first time direct evidence of a vertebrate three-level food chain in the fossil record with the simultaneous preservation of three trophic levels. Our analysis shows that small-sized Lower Permian xenacanthid sharks of the genus Triodus preyed on larval piscivorous amphibians. The recorded trophic interaction can be explained by the adaptation of certain xenacanthids to fully freshwater environments and the fact that in these same environments, large temnospondyls occupied the niche of modern crocodiles. This unique faunal association has not been documented after the Permian and Triassic. Therefore, this Palaeozoic three-level food chain provides strong and independent support for changes in aquatic trophic chain structures through time.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized
Crocodile tears are real. Who knew?

Posted on 8 September, 2007 13:05 by Jura 2 Comments
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_Crocodylus niloticus_ eating an impala. Do you see tears?
```
We’ve all heard the old wives tale about crocodiles crying during feeding. Many of us have probably also run across numerous references that discount this statement. That said, there has never been much scientific interest in determining whether, or not crocodiles actually cry.That has just changed:

Shaner, D.M., and Vliet, K.A. 2007. Crocodile Tears: And thei eten hem wepynge. Bioscience. Vol. 57. No. 7: 615-617. doi: 10.1641/B570711

The subtitle there translates to: “And they eat them weeping.”

The aforementioned authours were studying an apparent phenomenon in humans called: parareflexes. The hypothesis for this goes that a screwup in our normal genetic makeup, may result in the expression of traits/behaviours from an older phylogenetic time. Interestingly, the hypothesis came about from the supposed phenomenon of crocodile tears. In this case, the hypothesis is assuming that the trait of crying while eating, is one that was found in the last common ancestor between humans and crocodiles (over 300 mya). Er, yeah.

Coming back to the story, the authours tested Alligatorids (2 caiman species and the American alligator) from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm in St. Augustine Florida, USA (highly recommended for folks who like crocs). The animals were trained to walk up on the bank, out of the water, and accept food from there. All the animals were dry when they came up to eat.

The results showed that crocodylians do cry while eating. At least, they seem to when eating away from water (rather hard to tell if they are crying while in the water). They also show a large amount of bubbling around their eyes. Stranger still, the eyes cry at different rates (i.e. one eye has more bubbles and water than the other).

So what does it all mean?

That, the authours didn’t delve too much into. They mentioned that the phenomenon they witnessed was different from the one mentioned on Adam Britton’s site. The authours suggest that this might be a byproduct of crocodylian anatomy. Due to the extensive sinuses found in crocodylian skulls (see: here), there is a connection between the nasolachrymal duct (the nose/tear ducts) and the nasopharynx (where the internal nostrils meet the throat). The authours speculate that during bouts that involve pushing air back and forth through this duct (e.g. feeding, or extensive fighting), the lachrymal glands are stimulated to release tears. This would also explain why there was bubbling found in nearly all the animals studied.

So crocodylians cry; but they still don’t seem to do it out of remorse. I guess this makes the old wives tale only partially true.

~Jura
This entry was posted in Crocodylia Uncategorized
Biomechanics of theropod necks

Posted on 4 August, 2007 14:47 by Jura Comment
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_Ceratosaurus_ skeleton from the NMNH website
```
Yes, yet another entry involving dinosaurs. Given their popularity, you’d think that I’d have a better write up of them on my site. >:)

It will happen one day. Until then, there are plenty of great places on the web to learn about dinosaurs.

That said, let’s tackle the meat of the matter.

Snively, E. and Russell, A.P. 2007. Functional Variation of Neck Muscles and Their Relation to Feeding Style in Tyrannosauridae and Other Large Theropod Dinosaurs. The Anatomical Record. Vol. 290: 934-957.

This paper is just an awesome testament to just how much we can learn about animals by studying their skeletons alone.

The authors studied the cervical (neck) vertebrae and skulls of 15 theropod dinosaurs from 3 major clades.

The family: Tyrannosauridae
- Daspletosaurus
- Albertosaurus
- Gorgosaurus
- Tarbosaurus
- Tyrannosaurus (Nanotyrannus as well, but it was placed as a probable junior synonym of Tyrannosaurus).
Carnosauria
- Allosaurus
- Sinraptor
- Monolophosaurus
Neoceratosauria
- Ceratosaurus
Abelisauridae
- Carnotaurus
- Abelisaurus
- Majungatholus
It should be noted that, where possible, multiple species within a genus were used.
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_Allosaurus_ skull from UCMP Berkeley's site
```
The authors studied the muscle scars left on the cervical vertebrae and rear skulls of every specimen. By carefully studying the location of each scar, and comparing it to the Extant Phylogenetic Bracket (EPB) – which would be birds and crocodylians – it was possible for them to determine which scar belong to which neck muscle.

Neater still; the size of a muscle scar, at its origin, is proportional to the cross sectional area of that very muscle (at least when comparing homologous muscles).

What does it all mean? Basically, the authors were able to deduce (with reasonable accuracy) the overall size of the muscles found in these theropod’s necks, just by measuring the size of the muscle scars left on the cervical vertebrae themselves.

Now how cool is that?

The end results featured 3 representative species:
1. Tyrannosaurus rex
2. Allosaurus fragilis
3. Ceratosaurus nasicornis
Each one was a “poster child” for a particular feeding method.
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_T.rex_ skull from Biocrawler dinosaur encyclopedia
```
Tyrannosaurs (especially Tyrannosaurus) employed a puncture and pull method that required strong muscles for pulling the neck up and sideways (somewhat similar to the feeding method used by crocodiles when on land).

Neoceratosaurs showed strong ventral musculature suggesting strong downward force was being used. They also show strong dorsal and lateral musculature, which suggests that they employed a “hit and run” method of attack that would be similar to white pointer sharks, or Komodo dragons.

Last, but certainly not least, Allosaurus and its ilk were more similar to the speedy dromaeosaurs (Deinonychus, Velociraptor) in hunting style. Strong ventral musculature helps to corroborate previous studies (such as Emily Rayfield’s FEA study) that Allosaurus used its head like a hatchet, and slammed it down into prey animals. The long, strong forearms were probably used first to hold prey and brace it for the killing strike.

All in all, this was a fascinating paper. One with the potential to change all future reconstructions of these animals.

So keep your eyes tuned to Discovery Channel, as I’m sure they are bound to make a special that will incorporate this data (they always do).

~Jura
This entry was posted in Dinosaurs Uncategorized