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Oppinions and questions



Dear list,

Well after the Falcarius find (and even before that) I came to think that though therizinosaurs specially basal ones might have used the big claws to bring branches to mouth's reach it seems too farfetched to be a very common behaviour for one simple reason: the necks reach further than the claws. In the "Chased by Dinosaurs" WWD special on the Gobi Desert I found it particularly ridiculous that a Therizinosaurus individual was "clipping" a bush lower than the creature itself was, when it could have as easily hunkered down much like a goose and foraged on the branches now at a much more convenient height. Not mentioning that the claws could do their propurted job better in this position.
I'm with another member of this list in the assertion that the claws were used mainly for defense. If they were use for aggression in the forebearers of "scythe-lizards", defense can coopt the same structures rather easily.
In the same manner if the hands were also display devices in these ancestors I would think that therizinosaurs would flash the claws to resolve social disputes. Perhaps one can even paralell Therizinosaurus big claws to the tusks of proboscideans though one should take care in making such correspondances.


Now for a few questions:

Suscited by a conversation I had at Dinoforum.net I'd like to ask what became of the ankylosaur and hypsilophodont found at James Ross Island in the 80's. Were they studied or are they still resting in some museum shelf?

A strange mention of a parallelism at the same forum, between Falcarius and Deinocheirus, makes me wonder: Is there any way the later can be a giant form of basal therizinosauroid? Or is it still largely considered as an indeterminate ornithomimosaur?

Hope to have raised some eyebrows, and not to have frowned some at the same time,
Renato Santos


My online art gallery:
http://dracontes.deviantart.com
Comments and critics are appreciated.

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