Re: DIDACTYLS

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

At 08:43 PM 9/30/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Well, you're not being repetitious to me!  I'm sorry if long time
>listpeople find some of this tedious or repetitious- but us newcomers don't
>know all the history and have things that WE want to say too.
>Anyway, naturally I find this post very interesting, thanks. And while
>we're on the subject (sort of) I don't know of anyone ever restoring any
>dinosaur with a toe in the air until after Bakker's drawing (which appeared
>in the Hot Blooded Dinosaurs and elsewhere).  How come nobody ever thought
>of that before if it's so obvious?  Surely there were specimens of
>Dromaeosaurids before Deinonyschus that had feet preserved.  Or were
>there?

Yes, but they weren't appreciated.  The types of Dromaeosaurus and
Velociraptor were known, and the Velociraptor type actually shows the
particular foot morphology of interest.

However, many of the paleontologists of the middle decades of this century
were not interested in the paleobiology of dinosaurs in general, or small
dinosaurs in particular.  It wasn't until the 1960s and the discovery of
Deinonychus that a) this particular foot morphology was appreciated; b) the
paleobiological implications of this foot morphology was appreciated; c)
small dinosaurs in general were appreciated.

Now matter how you slice it (;-) ), the discovery of Deinonychus was THE
major event in our understanding of dromaeosaurids, their anatomy, and their
possible behavior.  (Oh, yeah, and all that dinosaur endothermy and origin
of birds stuff, too...).

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661