Re: Suchomimus vs Baryonyx: Dare to Compare

[tlford@ix.netcom.com]

Betty Cunningham wrote:
> 
> 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......

Ahh, the very questions that I would have posted, but I've decided to
wait and see the article before I make my questions known about it being
a fish eater. I thought at Paul's SVP talk they didn't have much of the
hand. I'll just read the article.

Tracy