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Andy Farke wrote:
>Quoting Mark Hallett:
> >"Crocs (excluding >extinct terrestrial forms) don't have to deal with the potential dessication >of lip and mouth mucosa that other tetrapods do, since they're either in the >water or close to it. A "baretoothed" croc-like mouth in dinosaurs would be >subject to this, as well as a having a continuing problem in keeping flies >and other flying or crawling ectoparisitic forms from reaching these soft >tissues." > >So what about the extinct terrestrial crocodylomorphs? How do their mouths >compare to those of early dinosaurs? How about other big terrestrial >archosaurs, such as Postosuchus and their kin? Would this imply that >"lip-like coverings" had to evolve early in the history of archosaurs and >were then secondarily lost in crocodiles? I'm just throwing a lot of >questions (not necessarily well-grounded) out here. . . > >Andy Lip-like coverings were very likely to have been lost in aquatic crocodiles
yet present in early terrestrial forms. Other terrestrial archosaur forms (other
than pterosaurs which had beaks) also, were very likely to have
them.
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