Re: Good mother dinos

[rowe@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)]

Tracy asks about Tom's clarification of my response to Martin's
forwarding of someone else's question:

>I don't follow this last point.  Is the implication that the
>"hatchlings" were actually someone's snack-ling?  Or that Maiasaura
>may have only stuck around until the blessed moment, leaving the kids
>on their own after they hatched (hatch-key kids?)

I think what Tom was saying was only that there is some doubt as to
whether or not the maiasaurs with the un-ossified bones had hatched.
The argument I outlined depends on you knowing that the animals were
post-hatch individuals.  It could be that maiasaurs could get up and
walk as soon as they hatched, and that the ones with the incomplete
bones were animals still developing within their shells.  Of course,
even if they could walk immediately upon hatching, there might be
extensive parental care (think deer), but if they could, then an
argument for the *necessity* of parental care is undercut.

-- 
Mickey Rowe     (rowe@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu)