Alvarezsaurid arms was Re: JFC-Bloodiest Battle ??

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> Nevertheless, the shortness of the alvarezsaur forelimbs is especially 
> weird.  Even if the forelimbs were used for digging, why were they so 
> short?

(You almost certainly know this, but I'd just like to clarify that "digging" 
is meant here in the biomechanical sense, not necessarily in the sense of 
digging holes into the ground, an activity that the alvarezsaurid body shape 
rules out at extremely high levels of confidence.)

> It's possible/lilely that alvarezsaurids evolved from theropods in which 
> the forelimbs were already reduced (as in compsognathids - or maybe 
> compsognathids themselves were the ancestors of alvarezsaurids).  Perhaps 
> alvarezsaurids inherited forelimbs that were on the way to being 
> vestigial?  Then, for one reason or another (maybe to do with the shift to 
> a myrmecophagous diet), the forelimbs acquired a new function in digging. 
> But by this point the alvarezsaurs were stuck with their puny forelimbs, 
> and had to make the best of them.  And, for some reason, the forelimbs 
> could not be re-enlarged - although fortunately a strong upper arm 
> musculature was retained.

This does not make sense.

Instead, I propose -- and I don't think this is an original idea of mine 
even just when applied to alvarezsaurs; it has been suggested for 
tyrannosaurids in any case -- to go back to elementary-school physics. To 
the ratio of force to lever length, that is. For maximal speed of movement, 
it is desirable that all muscles insert as far proximally as possible; the 
tradeoff is reduced force. For maximal force, it is desirable that all 
muscles insert as far distally as possible. That's clearly where the 
selection pressure for a myrmecophage goes. Unfortunately, there's a 
constraint in development: the upper arm, for example, cannot become as 
broad as the forearm is long -- the insertion points of muscles cannot 
migrate distally indefinitely. The solution is to let the distal end migrate 
toward the muscle insertion instead -- to shorten the arm. Now, quadrupedal 
animals, let alone burrowing or climbing ones, cannot afford to shorten the 
forelimbs indefinitely. This is why all modern myrmecophages retain fairly 
long forelimbs. But the alvarezsaurids were bipedal and thus free to shorten 
the arms further, till the biceps inserted right next to the wrist and the 
serratus or whatever arm retractor inserted right next to the elbow. The 
shortness of the forelimbs is not a bug, it's a feature.

For the same reasons, modern myrmecophages are never cursorial, while the 
alvarezsaurids were: being cursorial requires cursorial limb proportions, 
and a quadruped cannot have cursorial and fossorial limb proportions at the 
same time, while a biped can.

> Carnotaurines have tiny forelimbs that were probably useless, but the 
> scapula and coracoid are still very large and (presumably) well-muscled. 
> So alvarezsaurid ancestors may similarly have drastically shortened the 
> forelimb (associated with loss of function), but left the arm musculature 
> mostly untouched (?to promote ribcage and pectoral girdle mobility, as 
> suggested for _Carnotaurus_).

Flightless birds often have large shoulder girdles. This holds even for 
moas, which completely lacked forelimbs including the shoulder joint.

Regarding the meaning of "ecological niche", I was taught to never say an 
organism occupies a niche, but instead to say that it _forms_ it. This is 
IMHO exaggerated, but it overshoots in the right direction.