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Re: The Wild and Wacky *Carnotaurus*



On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 11:26:37AM -0400, Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
scripsit:
> > From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On
> > Behalf Of Richard W Travsky How many carnotaurs specimens are
> > known? Can gender be determined, and is there a correlation
> > between the horns and gender?
> 
> Number of described _Carnotaurus_ specimens = 1.
> 
> Hard to get a correlation off of that... :-)
> 
> Also, sex (gender is a human pyschosocial construct; sex is a
> biological phenomenon) cannot be adequate determined for most
> dinosaur fossils, so one of the two variables in said correlation
> can't be adequately evaluated.

Is there a sex correlation for anything other than ceratopsians?

I have a silly fondness for the idea of arm-feather display
structures, that need snapping into view, but the apparent selection
for grasping functions don't seem to go along with that, and it's hard
to see how much in the way of mating geometries could, or anything
else would, either, with those tiny ranges of motion; claw-clicking
communication doesn't seem wildly plausible, either.

I have visions of hand-holding group sideways leaning social
behavour in tyranosaurs, but can't begin to imagine how one could test
for that, even getting really lucky with trace fossils.

-- 
                           graydon@dsl.ca
               To maintain the end is to uphold the means.