Re: Sauropod stones

["Norton, Patrick" <Patrick.Norton@state.me.us>]

Darren Naisch wrote:

>As for the roundedness of the supposed 'choking' stone, how polished it   
was may be irrelevant as the animal may have been picking up rounded   
stones
in any case.<

Well, perhaps. But if we accept that they were picking up rounded or   
polished stones to begin with, we shouldn't be using those   
characteristics to help identify possible gizzard stones (recognizing, of   
course, that location, mineral content and other factors also play a role   
in such hypotheses.)  It's hard for me to accept that they were ingesting   
smoothed stones, since such stones would be far less effective than   
"rough" stones at assisting with food processing.