RE: titanosaur osteoderms

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Sebastián Apesteguía wrote:

> That's why I don't think that the presence or absence
> of scutes in Alamoss, Opis or Futalognkoss would mean
> anything, because if they had only 2 or 3 big scutes
> in the whole body, they are very difficult to
> preserve.

Yes, good point.  When an adult titanosaur skeleton is found mostly complete 
and at least partly articulated (like _Epachthosaurus_, or _Opisthocoelicaudia_ 
or even _Isisaurus_) they are interpreted, quite reasonably, as unarmored.  
Then again, you have to wonder how much protection only two or three scutes 
would afford to a titanosaur, no matter how big the scutes were.  :-)

While on the subject of big scutes, there is a report of very large osteoderms 
that are assumed to be of sauropod origin...

Ford, T. L. (2001).  The armor of sauropods.  Journal of Vertebrate 
Paleontology 21 (3, Supp) Abstracts of papers, 61st Annual Meeting, Society of 
Vertebrate Paleontology, Museum of the Rockies, Montana State University, 
Bozeman, Montana, October, 3-6, p. 50a.

I don't have much/any info about these mega-scutes.

Cheers

Tim


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