RE: News story: Did We Get Dinosaurs' Noses Wrong?

["Tracy L. Ford" <dino.hunter@home.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
Darryl Jones
Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 1:05 PM
To: theclaw10@home.com
Cc: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: News story: Did We Get Dinosaurs' Noses Wrong?

At 12:29 AM 8/8/2001, Chris Srnka wrote:
>I think Stan's dental situation isn't exactly the normative one for
>_T.rex_...as has been hinted at before, the extruding teeth are most
>likely evidence of a pathology. Regardless-yes, it seems they were without
>any kind of covering over the teeth...(I tried to reflect that in one of
>my illustrations, and I'm going to have to rework a lot of my older ones
>to line up with this...**rolls up sleeves**)

Why is it so difficult for people to believe that this is just another case
of teeth slipping out of their sockets? <<

Because its not. Ok, simple answer, but have you TALKED to the people at BHI
who worked on the specimen? Who prepared the specimen? Well, guess what, I
have. And I believe them that that is the natural position of the teeth, no
matter how bizarre/odd, it is for THAT specimen. Something is going on with
that and I think I know what it is (But will leave that for a possible
paper, and anyone who saw my talk at Dinofest years ago, should remember). I
did write a paper for Dinofest, but no one has answered my questions on
deadlines etc so I doubt very much it will EVER get published.


 There are plenty of examples of
this happening (that is, teeth with roots being found next to
specimens).  There are even examples of this in other tyrannosaurids (AMNH
5664).  The teeth slipped post mortem and either could not be pushed back
into the jaw in the specimen now, or they are being left like that because
now it has the longest teeth of any T. rex ever.<<

And there other examples of theropods with long teeth that hang beyond the
dentary when the mouth was closed. The new small Ceratosaurus skull does and
none of its teeth have slipped out. Why believe ALL of those specimens have
had the teeth slipped out? I suppose the only way to answer that would be to
do a CT or X-ray or something on them to tell for sure (or break them open,
but who'll want to do that?)

A simple thing that seems to be missed in this is that, coverings or no
coverings, "Stan" would have trouble opening its mouth wide enough to be as
effective a hunter as its fellow T. rex.

No, it still could easily open its mouth wide enough to eat.


Tracy L. Ford
P. O. Box 1171
Poway Ca  92074