Re: _T. rex_ debate in the newspaper

["Larry Febo" <larryf@capital.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Paamy <paamy@talk21.com>
To: larryf@capital.net <larryf@capital.net>; dinosaur@usc.edu
<dinosaur@usc.edu>
Date: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 3:54 PM
Subject: RE: _T. rex_ debate in the newspaper


>I doubt that T. Rex would have been capable of biting through the neck
>vertebrae of it's prey, as this would almost certainly have broken its
>teeth. Rex teeth are designed for cutting gashes out of prey and leaving
>large debilitating wounds, and rounded teeth are much better at removing
>large amounts of flesh from the victim in one bite, leaving a 'trough'
>shaped wound, than pointed slashing teeth. Why would Raptors have needed
>their teeth so much when they had sickle claws anyhow.


.."would have broken it`s teeth." Are you sure about this??? I thought neck
vertebrae of Sauropods were highly pneumaticized . I was wondering (and
hoping for a response by some T-rex expert) if there  was some relationship
between the length of T-rex`s teeth and what it could have dispatched in
this manner. Perhaps there was some type of an "arms race" between sauropods
and tyrannosaurs in this matter. Perhaps T-rex could only dispatch smaller
immature sauropods in this way, and only sick and old sauropods that through
exhaustion couldn`t hold their heads high, and exposed the neck in the head
region perhaps allowing for decapitation (again, I`m thinking of all those
sauropod fossils with missing skulls). I`m not familiar though with the
specific measurements ie. diameter of neck vertebrae vs length of
tyrannosaur teeth. (I could look into this , but was hoping for a "quick
answer"...8^).