RE: new

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> John Hunt
>
> There was an exhibition of feathered dinosaurs at the Natural History
> Museum a couple of years ago.  Don't know if the items on display were
> originals or casts, but it gave the museum an excuse to get one of the
> national treasures out of the vault.  There was a specimen shown with
> the scientific name of "Dave the fuzzy raptor".  This was labelled as a
> juvenile dromaeosaur but was much larger than microraptor, and much
> better preserved.  This specimen also showed the curious orientation of
> the hind limbs.  Has anyone seen this specimen.

Yes. You can find many images of it here:
http://research.amnh.org/vertpaleo/dinobird.html

Note, among other things, how the knees have been popped out of
articulation, and the metatarsals, and how the pelvic region is really
banged up.  Sad to say, this is not a specimen that really helps resolve the
question.

> How would anyone come to be buried with their feet over their head
> without human intervention?

Easy: scavenging, drying, wind or water currents, and many other factors.
Just go around a beach or out in the wild in general, and look at the bodies
of dead animals.  How many of them show no disarticulation or other
distortions?

I am going to go further than what was previously posted, though.  There are
NO perfect fossils.  ALL fossils are imperfect records of living, breathing
organisms.  The science of paleontology is the process by which we can take
these imperfect records and attempt, with appropriately large error bars, to
reconstruct the living organisms.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796