Re: Theropod eating and attacking

[jamolnar@juno.com]

On Wed, 20 Aug 97 12:58:03 -0400 Mark Shelly <mshelly@noclant.navy.mil>
writes:
>   Would theropods swallow the bones?   Could they digest the bones or
>would they have to pass them or regurgitate them?  Passing them 
>doesn?t
>look possible to me.  Would the feeding habits change by type or size 
>of
>theropod?  Maybe small prey or fish were eaten whole.  On some 
>theropods,
>hand claws may have been used to dismember the bodies at the joints, 
>or
>scrape meat from bones.  Beaks may take strips of meat at a time.

Birds of prey and owls will regurgitate undigestible parts of their prey
in pellets.  Some are capable of digesting small bones.  Fish-eating
birds usually have strong stomach acids and gizzards and digest fish
bones, but a few also regurgitate pellets.  Theropods may have done
either.  I wonder how one could tell from fossils which method they were
using?

Judy Molnar
Education Associate, Virginia Living Museum
vlmed@juno.com
jamolnar@juno.com
All questions are valid; all answers are tentative.