Re: Shark eating dino fossil found in Utah

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Colin McHenry wrote:

> Good suggestion - potentially important if the fish were getting too large 
> to be swallowed whole.  I imagine that a  ~1m semiootid could be a bit of a 
> mouthfull for a Dilophosaurus sized animal?  Processing food via hands and 
> arms would free the skull from the need to handle food processing forces, 
> potentially allowing the skull to be optimised for prey capture.  Or 
> perhaps the forelimbs could play a role in that as well (c.f. the bear and 
> salmon analogy).

Yeah, it goes to the whole 'division of labour' thing.  The beauty of being 
a biped is that the jaws and forelimbs can become differentially specialized 
for certain roles in predation: prey capture, or for the manipulation or 
processing of prey, for example.  The hindlimbs can become specialized too 
to some degree, such as in deinonychosaurs.

The other advantage to being a fish-eating biped is that, after catching a 
fish, the theropod can brag to his friends "I caught a fish THIS big" - and 
show them exactly how big!

Cheers

Tim

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