Re: lizard & dino lips

[Bettyc <Bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

> At 06:40 PM 5/11/97 EDT, Sam j hogan wrote:
> >Now, that brings up an interesting question.  Did they have lips?
> >Lizards don't  ...  Birds DON'T.  In fact all of the living reptiles
> > or dino decendents don't.  So, did dinosaurs?  Did some have them
> > and some not?

So Stan Friesen wrote:
> The presence of vascular traces on the maxilla and dentary of T. rex
> strongly suggests it had lips, or perhaps even cheeks (though that is much
> less likely).
<snip>
> Most ornithischians have a recessed tooth row, with a vascularized bony
> shelf above (maxilla) and below (dentary) them.  This is usually
> interpreted (with good reason) as implying that they had cheeks.  On the
> other hand the structure of the predentary and premaxilla of most
> ornithischians indicates that the front part of the mouth usually had a
> beak.  Thus a hadrosaur face would look rather like a horse with a beak.

heck of a lot of dinosaurs had beaks, some had beaks and cheeks.
What about lips instead of beaks?
What about lips AND beaks?  Could you see a sort of flexible skin/tissue
area with a hardened beak only on the end, as if the dermal scales
widened and hardened just at the central leading edge of the mouth? 
where the beak keratin-like substance floated above the skeleton on soft
tissues
instead of being attached directly to the skull?
-- 
           Betty Cunningham  
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