A Sprawling finish, with Garden Park and a new Museum

[MariusRomanus@aol.com]

Sorry about the long delay. I was out at the Air Force Academy for a week so as 
to commission my brother a 1Lt(graduation). Another Kripchak as an Officer in 
the Air Force... May the gods save us all.

Anyway, while I was out there in Colorado Springs, Mike Triebold's museum, *The 
Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center* in Woodland Park opened up. Great 
stuff... Two squabbling albertosaurs, the best mounted *Triceratops* I've ever 
seen, pachychelalosaurs, really big pteranodons, *Edmontosaurus* with heald 
bites marks on its lower jaw, North American oviraptor, *Dromaeosaurus*, 
*Thescelosaurus*, a whole slew of marine reptiles, some with life-sized 
restorations.... Pretty sweet if I do say so myself. I'll eventually get the 
photos developed and up for anyone interested.

I also took a litle trip down to Canon City to see Garden Park... the site of 
the infamous Bone Wars. I tell ya... seeing THE quarries of Marsh and Cope 
(amongst others), in pretty much the same condition as when they left them, 
was... well... I don't think there are any words to describe that. 

On to business...

5/28/2004 David Marjanovic wrote: >> The femoral head of *M. zhaoianus* is a 
cylinder sticking in a cylindrical hole. It can only, to any significant 
extent, rotate about the long axis of the cylinder. 

http://research.amnh.org/users/sunny/hwang.et.al.2002.pdf I think it's fig. 8. 
<< 

David, I used the .pdf long before deciding to take my point of view and to 
post questions to the DML. No worries... I definitely took into account fig. 9 
(not fig. 8, but close enough). There is a region that had me curious a long 
time ago, located just above the pubic peduncle and just behind the antiliac 
shelf. The region seems to be a prominent rim which is part of the cranial 
aspect of the acetabulum. In effect, it would prevent the femur from doing what 
I proposed. Support for this conclusion is also found by the fact that one can 
see the rim from the side in later dromaeosaurs. It was at this point that it 
dawned on me that this same rim also prevents the femur from extending forwards 
like we all know is possible. How could this be??? That's when I realized the 
photos of *Microraptor* were of a more or less flat fossil, and that the rim 
may have been (and was most likely so) a flange that was cranial to the joint 
but also below the point where the femoral head inserte!
 d into
 the acetabulum. This problem of misinterpretation is why John Hutchinson 
responded to this particular thread with cautions about reading things from 2D 
pictures. Others have made the same remarks in the past about fossils in 
general. I suspect that this is also the reason why John Hutchinson doesn't 
appear to be ardently against my idea (the same goes for a few others who have 
voiced in on the issue). On the other hand... those who are zealously against 
my idea need this particular region to be as they see it so that they can 
accept it at face value. I knew that any dorsal-ventrally flattened fossil of a 
bird could look like this while still knowing that they can maneuver their legs 
with their knees pointing almost completely cranially. It's also peculiar how 
those people in possession of microraptor fossils, or those who have seen the 
fossils in person and have been able to study them for some length of time, are 
the ones who see the possibility for a greater range of moti!
 on than
 the ones who have only seen 2D pictures of it a!
nd its re
latives. There is a chance that other fossils will straighten this out. I just 
hope that additional finds are not hammered into preconceived concepts despite 
what the finds actually reveal. 

At this point, I doubt if I can say or show anything more that will promote 
additional outside of the box thinking. I have looked at fig. 9 over and over 
again and still see no reason to believe that it cannot be interpreted in a way 
that will allow my idea to be possible, if not completely true. Yes, I myself 
can formulate other ideas and interpret fossils in other ways that could 
contradict and/or falsify my own hypothesis. After all, that's pretty much how 
science works. But, many are obviously set in their beliefs. 

Along the same path, or at least the same woods anyway...

5/28/2004 David Marjanovic wrote: >> I still don't know why everyone seems to 
assume that *Microraptor* and the like were arboreal. The 1st toe was a bit 
longer than usual, but still short, and its position is unknown;.... << 

You are using modern toe length analysis based on modern perching birds that do 
not utilize their manus in trees. With this, you conclude that the toes of 
*Microraptor*, which does have full use of its hands, do not necessarily 
indicate a climbing animal... 

So for now, I'm with you David, and will just sit here and patiently await the 
arrival of new fossils. But, I'll keep from making any solid conclusions until 
it's actually possible to do so. If new fossils support my idea, great. If they 
don't, oh well. It was fun while it lasted. At this time, I have nothing more 
to say about it. 

And David, thanks for not spinning around in the dark wildly firing your 
shotgun in all directions, but still managing to miss the target like an action 
movie cliche'. And as to limit the time spent, even if brief, for you to make 
corrections to my literary devices, should I run Hungarian quips (I speak it 
being that I'm a Hunkie) by you before using them in my posts??? I want to get 
the translation right. Oh, and thanks for the reference to Max Cardoso Langer's 
paper. 

Kris 
http://hometown.aol.com/saurierlagen/Paleo-Photography.html