Re: Reptile skin comparisons

["RAY D STANFORD" <STARSONG@prodigy.net>]

Hello Patrick and List,

    Patrick, thanks for comparing, for those of us who took the time to view
the comparison photos, the throat scale pattern of an Anaconda with those
linear dermal pattern(s) in the fossilized skin of a Sauropod embryo found
in Argentina.

    It is good to be on the lookout for possibly relevant correlations and
to examine the similarities, but also the differences.  In this instance,
the resemblance is more due to sub-hexagonal patterns of peripheral
interface, than one resulting from any close similarity of a STRUCTURAL
nature.

    In the Anaconda one finds a series of elongated, parallel, OVERLAPPING
SCALES (the posterior edge of an anterior scale overlapping the anterior
edge of the posterior scale), while in the Sauropod embryo skin, we are
seeing a linear series of RAISED BUMPS THAT DO NOT OVERLAP but which
interface at their edges in sub-hexagonal patterns superficially resembling
the shape of belly scales on the Anaconda, but which are of rather disparate
structural natures.

    Ray Stanford







-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick Norton <ptnorton@email.msn.com>
To: Dinolist(message) <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Date: Sunday, February 28, 1999 7:57 PM
Subject: Reptile skin comparisons


In perusing the past few months of National Geographic, I was struck by the
similarity of two photos--one being the scales along the throat of an
Anaconda, and the other that mysterious line of scales on one piece of the
embryonic sauropod skin found in Argentina.  I scanned them in for those
interested in looking for themselves at:
www.geocities.com/soho/village/2591/


PTNorton@msn.com
www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/galaxy/1962/