TRIKE DIGITS..

["D.W.Naish" <dwn194@soton.ac.uk>]

> Recently, I was standing in the Science Museum of Minnesota, admiring their=
> mount of _Triceratops prorsus_, a mount built in the traditional vertical-f=
> emur/horizontal-humerus fashion.  As I stood there, an idea occurred to me. 

I have now seen two mounts of _Triceratops_ (one at the AMNH, well, I saw it in
a photo) where there are only 4 manual digits. Am I just much stupider than I
think I am, or is someone making some kind of mistake?

And how could those AMNH-ers get away with a ground-ward descending stegosaur
tail? Is there some good evidence proving this correct?

Is it just me, or does the tail of _Parasaurolophus_ actually *ascend* on
leaving the sacrum? Uncle Bob insists that ALL dinosaurs (bar stegosaurs and
diplodocids) have tails that descend on leaving... not that I take his words on
anatomy as gospel of course.. (hey! The sliding cartilage in the pterosaur ankle
 - it means it's a goddam dinosaur!)

"Power's all around, curiosity.."

DARREN NAISH
dwn194@soton.ac.uk