re: parental care in dinosaurs

[Crpntr@ix.netcom.com (Kenneth Carpenter)]

Tom Holtz wrote:

>>  In Montana, alleged eggs of Troodontids also were laid in a linear 
>>row.>So does this tell us anything about brooding behavior in the 
>>Tyrannosauridae >and the Troodontidae? Could these theropods be 
engaged >>in "drop 'em and >forget 'em" egg-laying?  Does this indicate 
that T. >>rex chicks were deadly >12-inch terrors right after hatching 
(requiring >>no matriarchal or patriarchal >care-taking)? And if 
Oviraptor chicks >>required parental care-taking in a >nest, what was 
unusual about the >>Tyrannisauridae and Troodontidae chicks >such that 
they didn't need a >>nest?

>The null hypothesis, on phylogenetic basis, is that all dinosaurs used 
>some degree of parental care, as both the in-group (birds) and the 
>closest surviving outgroup (crocodillians) protect the nest and the 
>young for some duration.



Megapode birds care for the nest to maintain proper incubation 
temperature, however, once the young are hatched, there is no parental 
care.  Therefore, a blanket statement that there must have been some 
degree of parental care in dinosaurs is not necessarily true.