RE: Platyhystrix and dinosaur humps/sails

["Jerry D. Harris" <LOKICORP@compuserve.com>]

Message text written by INTERNET:tlford@ix.netcom.com
>A hump, I personally doubt it in dinosaurs.<

        ...except that some of the moderately high-spined forms, like
_Acrocanthosaurus_, have abundant evidence on the neural spines for heavy
ligamenture along the back -- if there are ligaments there, then there
cannot be a simple flesh-and-bone sail, a la _Dimetrodon_. The back of
_Acrocanthosaurus_ would be much more hump-like than sail-like, but I don't
mean "hump" as a large, rotund structure (which is the image I think a lot
of people think of when they hear the term -- probably residue from the
"Hunchback of Notre Dame" mythology we were all raised on, and maybe we
need a better term than "hump").  The "hump" would be elongate, and still
narrower in width than, say, the dimension across the rib cage, but still
thicker than if the skin were virtually appressed against the neural
spines.


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                     Jerry D. Harris
                 Fossil Preparation Lab
          New Mexico Museum of Natural History
                   1801 Mountain Rd NW
               Albuquerque  NM  87104-1375
                 Phone:  (505) 841-2809
                  Fax: ; (505) 841-2808
                LOKICORP@compuserve.com