>I just finished a
drawing of a Segnosaurid walking in a Megatherium positure. Whith the fingers
and toes, pointing in and backwards.
What do ya think?
-DinosØMP
I hope you didn't spend too much time on your drawing, because I presume the
idea was wrong. It was obviously based on a theory that segnosaurs had similar
life-styles like the extinct ground-sloths. In other words segnosaurs probably didn't walk using their front limbs
(knuckles).
By the way, the fossil tracks usually show that toes of theropods and some
ornithopods did point slightly inwards.
However, the whole anatomy and especially shape of limbs (not to mention head
and neck region, of course) of Megatherium is completely different from
segnosaur's, starting from claws on the front limbs (though they both have three
claws on each forelimb), which are relatively short in Megatherium and very,
very long and SCYTHE-like (the word is perfectly chosen) in Therizinosaurus. The
knuckles are heavy and more massive in Megatherium, designed to bare part of the
weight of the animal while moving or standing on all fours. The hind limbs
differ even more. While segnosaur's hind limbs are long and built basically like
those in theropods and ornithopods, Megatherium had robust short hind limbs and
plantigrade feet. Segnosaurs were probably much faster moving large bipedal
dinosaurs, while Megatherium was elephant-size quadruped mammal.
Berislav V. Kržič (Krzic)
veselinka.stanisavac@siol.net
Beri's Dinosaur World
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/1638/index.html
http://www2.siol.net/ext/zza/index.html