Re: Theropod beaks again

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

Mike Keesey (mightyodinn@yahoo.com) wrote:

<For that matter, is there any extant animal, beaked or otherwise, with
jaws shaped like that?>

  Based on the lower jaw, at least, there are several mammals with
slender, narrow, and curved jaws that roughly parallel this shape, among
them many extant carnivorans and many extinct basal placentalians. The
snout shape is approximate, to what I've seen in some jackals and foxes;
long, tapering and narrow. This suggest snout function may have been
similar, as both animals tend to be probing animals, using their snouts to
probe narrow crevices, such asa in wood, between close bones such as ribs,
in holes, etc.

  My 0.02c,

  Cheers,

  Jaime

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)

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