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Re: More on the baby Triceratops



Amazing though how delicately some animals can use what seem to be only big brute tools. I'm thinking how crocodile mothers transporting their young around using only their mouths.


On Mar 10, 2006, at 11:59 AM, Graydon wrote:

On Fri, Mar 10, 2006 at 01:02:21PM -0600, Matthew Burton-Kelly scripsit:
They're fragmentary evidence as far as behaviour inference goes.
Footprints can tell you what the bottoms of the feet MAY have been
doing at the time (different behaviours may result in similar
prints, and vise versa).  However there's more to an animal's
behaviour than just what their feet are doing (or MIGHT have been
doing).

Perhaps the parental triceratops were carrying the babies? My first
image when I read this was of lions carrying cubs around by the scruff
of the neck.

We're talking a critter with a massive, sharp, tree-devouring beak, here, plus a largish clutch size.

We're also talking _very small_ juveniles compared to the adults; it's
not like mammalian herd animals when the juveniles are mostly leg and
able to keep up shortly after birth.