Re: Brontornis again

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

is it possible the jaw is strong enough to crush or severe bone?  
Us upright hominids had an advantage since we were scavenging kills
which still had marrow in them and using our smarts to get at the marrow
(and leaving all the rock tools around fer people to recreate the
method).
 
According to one paleo anthropology special I've seen, modern vultures
miss out on marrow most of the time.

I could see a large scavenger with bone-crushing jaws taking advantage
of the same marrow extravaganza that us wily hominids were using.

-Betty Cunningham

Christoph Kulmann wrote:
> The second idea came to me when i browsed a book about parrots - at least
> some of the skeletal drawings there showed a jaw quite similar to
> Brontornis. According to the descriptions, these birds were eating nuts
> and fruits. So following the idea of functional analogy, we could
> reasonably assume that Brontornis fed on fruits and nuts ....


-- 
Flying Goat Graphics
http://www.flyinggoat.com
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