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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