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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)