Re: Suchomimus vs Baryonyx: Dare to Compare

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

Have Suchomimus' feet been found? 
Did it show any special adaptations such as a wideing of the foot base?

I ask becasue if this was piscivorus and lived in a sort of "crocodilian
niche" it seems awful heavy to go wandering around in mud on a mere two
feet and I'm wondering if it's feet were either hippo-like in being big
broad blunt shapes, or if they seemed like they were possibly webbed
like modern waterfowl.  We've seen that the skin on the HANDS of
hadrosaurs could modify skin around the fingers to some sort of knobby
walking mitt, and I'm wondering if the skin on the FEET could have been
as specialized.

Has it's tail been found?
If it were as much a swimmer as a crocodile is, wouldn't we find the
tendon fusion  of the tail reduced from the conditions of say,
Deinonychus so the tail would not be as rigid right at the base of the
spine.   The 'wave' that goes through the body of a swimming animal
would be greatly reduced if the tail were as immobile for a section as
seen in  Deinonychus.  (picture of the 'wave' of the spine of a swimming
lizard here: I used it as reference for a swimming crocodile I've just
completed:  http://faculty.vassar.edu/~jolong/swimming.html )   
Here's a great article on dolphin spine flexibility when considered as a
swimming locomotor:
http://faculty.vassar.edu/~jolong/discsum.html   So if we got fused
tendons in the tail for any great length it wasn't no natural
swimmer......

-Betty Cunningham

archosaur@usa.net wrote:
> While I never liked the idea of Baryonyx, or even Spinosaurus being purely
> piscivorous, I have no doubt in my mind that this is what Suchomimus did. With
> a jaw like that,  what else could it possibly do.