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Re: Funny New Papers
Dann Pigdon schrieb:
I think the important word in the original sentence below is 'deliberate'. Smaller bones were almost
certainly injested incidentally, so you can expect bone pieces in some coprolites.
However few theropods had the dental equipment to crack bones for the marrow. Not even
the 'banana' teeth of tyrannosaurs would have been capable of cracking open a large femur to
reach the gooey centre. Blade-toothed beasties like carcharodontosaurids would have deliberately
avoided contact with bone if at all possible.
--
Also, keep in mind that at least some dinosaurs had much sturdier long
bone walls than mammals of comparable size (e.g., *Plateosaurus* - I
have CT sections, and the wall thickness is just amazing in both humerus
and femur. And I have pics of broken *Allosaurus*, *Giraffatitan*,
*Diplodocus*, *Dryosaurus*, etc. bones - the pattern is consistent). Add
to that that a lot of ridges and other larger surface features on
dinosaur longbones were less ossified than they are in mammals, so that
a predator's teeth had fewer sites offering a 'good grip' for a
high-pressure bite..... yes, I do see how this makes deliberate cracking
of longbones of adults difficult.
Dr. Heinrich Mallison
Museum für Naturkunde - Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und
Biodiversitätsforschung an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Invalidenstrasse 43
10115 Berlin
Tel: +49(0)30-2093-8764
Email: heinrich.mallison@mfn-berlin.de