Re: Rapator,the giant alvarezsaur

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> I like to imagine giant alvarezsaurids like huge Maribu storks (or
> Australia's Jabiru stork, with a confusingly similar name).

Marabu and Jabiru, emphasis on the first and last syllable respectively, are
not all that similar :-)

> Of course, there's nothing to stop smaller alvarezsaurids from living
> much like storks do (well, apart from the whole extinction thing, which
> has limited their behaviour significantly in recent years). People seem
> to place a lot of emphasis on their forelimbs alone, as if their entire
> behavioural repatoir must have accounted for them. They had other body
> parts as well...

Why do you think they had anything similar to a beak?

There are some really gigantic termite hills. A fossil one from the Morrison
Fm is said to be 30 m high. That sort of thing should be able to sustain a
giant myrmecophage. But, of course, more bones of *Rapator* wouldn't hurt.
We don't even know how many fingers it had (*Shuvuuia* retained 3...).