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Maisaura nesting



I was watching a wildlife program on TV last night about flamingos in 
and around the soda lakes of the African Rift System.  What 
particularly caught my interest was about their nesting behaviour 
(getting to the point real soon ;-) flamingos build their nests along 
the shoreline of these lakes in shallow water, if the shoreline moves 
they build a new nest (infact lines of abandoned nests can be seen 
around the shores of these lakes).  The nests are built of mud, water 
is evaporated off the top of the mound drawing up more moisture from 
the water the nest is standing in.  In this way the temperature at 
the top of the nest is 20 (no degrees symbol, darn) C. lower than the 
surrounding air helping to protect the chick from frying in the hot 
African temps. 

(the point at last, yay) the Maiasaura nests were found in and around 
shallow lake deposits by Horner.  It has been stated that the nests 
were more like mounds, rather than walled depressions (previously 
found in only one nest by Horner), constructed of mud.  I'm not sure 
what type of lake has been inferred (?calcic, soda), probably 
irrelavent.  It is therefore possible that the nests were built to protect the 
dinochicks from the 
hot temps in a similar fashion to flamingo nests.
Any more informed comments would be greatly appreciated, especially 
on the geology of nest sites as used to infer palaeoenvironment and 
temps (eg evaporites etc.) or to correct any screaming errors made 
;-)
CHEERS,
GABHAN PETTIGREW     If you can't fool all of the people  
Sgl3GP@Cardiff.ac.UK all of the time, then we should be  
Cardiff University   breeding them for stupidity (Cerebus)