RE: Gigantoraptor stuff

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Tom Holtz wrote:

> Not very. Nor much like Therizinosaurus, either. In fact, its arm and hand 
> are more similar to basal eumaniraptorans than to other oviraptorosaurs, in 
> terms of propotions.
> [snip]
> This thing is HUGE: Albertosaurus-sized. If it ate "small vertebrates", 
> those small vertebrates could include protoceratopsids...

_Gigantoraptor_ reminds me of a giant moa (dinornithid).  The resemblance is 
probably largely superficial, and I'm really going out on a limb here (so to 
speak)... but I can't help wonder if maybe those big clawed hands were used 
not for attack but for defense.  Those raking hands would prompt a roving 
tyrannosaur to think twice about coming too close.  Also, winged arms and 
hands might have made the animal (or at least the forelimb) appear even 
bigger and scarier than what it was.  Just idle speculation.

> It's "birdiness" are mostly convergences, as with oviraptorids (and 
> caenagnathoids in general), as more basal oviraptorosaurs lack these 
> traits.

Yes; just like alvarezsaurs.  Dromaeosaurs appear to have went the opposite 
way, with the more basal ones (such as microraptorans) the most bird-like, 
whereas _Achillobator_ and other big'uns lost many of the basal 
eumaniraptoran traits that we have come to regard as "bird-like".

Cheers

Tim

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