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RE: Drinker and Oryctodromeus (was Re: Dinosaurs burrowed to keep warm)



> Speculation aside, don't count on too many spiny dinosaurs being  
burrowers.  Spines usually only go one way into a hole and backing  
out isn't very easy.  

Having pointy bits hasn't discouraged present day echidnas, hedgehogs
and porcupines from going underground...

All this talk of tunnelling ornithopods also may shed light on another
aspect of the polar Victorian sites. In addition to the
ossified-tendonless Leaellynasaur tails, infilled Cretaceous burrows are
not uncommon in both the Otways and Strzeleckis. The majority are
probably of decapod origin (occasionally complete with fossil crayfish)
but some of them (untouched in the field) are really big - over a foot
across. Makes you wonder what we might find at the bottom of them.

Brian Choo

website = www.geocities.com/ozraptor4
livejournal = http://www.livejournal.com/users/ozraptor4/


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] On Behalf
Of franklin e. bliss
Sent: Friday, 23 March 2007 9:23 AM
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: Drinker and Oryctodromeus (was Re: Dinosaurs burrowed to
keep warm)

Delurking for a moment.

Speculation aside, don't count on too many spiny dinosaurs being  
burrowers.  Spines usually only go one way into a hole and backing  
out isn't very easy.  No reverse gear is a bad thing. Thumb spikes,  
large claws and heavy forearms would have been handy "gardening"  
tools however. Regarding burrow raiders, build a niche, and they will  
come but then, the home owners invented the "back door".

Field season is starting on the high plains of Wyoming/Montana.  A  
couple dozen misc. loose teeth came out the other day from a HC  
microsite in less than an hour. Now I am looking for that elusive  
burrowing Pachycephalosaur :>

Frank (Rooster) Bliss
MS Biostratigraphy
Weston, Wyoming
www.wyomingdinosaurs.com
On Mar 22, 2007, at 2:21 PM, Jura wrote:

> --- Tommy Bradley <htomsirveaux@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> As long as we're speculating, perhaps the very
>> large
>>> forearms and "hands" of deinocheires and some
>> others
>>> were used for digging up small burrowers.
>>>
>>> The tyrannosaurs could follow the diggers around
>> and
>>> scavenge the remains.
>>>
>>> Glen Ledingham
>>
>> That's a good notion.  This thread has really opened
>> up the speculation
>> floodgates!
>> I'm starting to think that maybe *Deinocheirus*
>> could've been a
>> "Dino-burrow-digger-outer" specialist.  Is it
>> possible that some Dinosaurs
>> specialized in this way?
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Personally, I think that this idea is a better
> scenario for _Deinocheirus_ than the previous thoughts
> of it being a termite eater. It's hard to imagine a
> multi-tonne animal living off of termites, without
> wiping out an entire colony everytime it got hungry.
>
> Well, maybe if there were some nasty big termites back
> then.
>
> Hmm, if only the graboids from Tremors were real. Then
> we might speculate that _Deinocheirus_ was actually a
> giant worm hunter. :)
>
> Jason
>
> "I am impressed by the fact that we know less about many modern  
> [reptile] types than we do of many fossil groups." - Alfred S. Romer
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________

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