ARE ORNITHOPODS BORING?

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

Way way back many moons ago, Pete Buchholz wrote..

> ornithopods specifically were by far NOT boring dinosaurs.  That
> distinction is placed squarely on basal coelurosaurs, by far the most
> boring of all dinosaurs... or perhaps ducks, they're kinda boring too.

Errm... the evolution of carpal spurs and knobs, extreme pugnacity and 
territoriality, nest parasitism, creching behaviour, parental carrying of 
young both in the water and (!) in the air, monogamous pair-bonding, 
underwater copulation and the (?)reinvention of the penis, major 
sexual variation in tracheal structure, grass-eating and 20-minute gut 
carrying time, niche partitioning according to intestine size, carrion 
feeding on Subantarctic islands, the evolution of fern-eating, island 
giantism, island dwarfism, crepuscularity, serrated bill margins, filter 
feeding with buccal lamellae, deep-diving, species where males are 
flightless but females flighted, coevolution of browsing forms with 
spiky lobelioideaens, repeated increases and decreases in body size 
during phylogeny, the annual transportation of TONNES of sand... and, 
pant pant pant, quacking.

How *ON EARTH* can ducks be boring?????

"All jungles were their jungles, and not a single animal stood before 
them" - - - Kipling

DARREN NAISH 
PALAEOBIOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP
School of Earth, Environmental & Physical Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH
Burnaby Building
Burnaby Road                           email: darren.naish@port.ac.uk
Portsmouth UK                          tel (mobile): 0776 1372651     
P01 3QL                                tel (office): 023 92842244
                                       tel (home): 023 80446718