RE: Despicable New Papers

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@umd.edu>]

> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] 
> On Behalf Of John Hunt
>
> Hone, D.W.E., and Watabe, M. 2010. New information on 
> scavenging and selective feeding behaviour of tyrannosaurs. 
> Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.
> ABSTRACT: Feeding traces for carnivorous theropod dinosaurs 
> are typically rare but can provide important evidence of prey 
> choice and mode of feeding.
> Here we report a humerus of the hadrosaurine Saurolophus 
> which was heavily damaged from feeding attributed to the 
> giant tyrannosaurine Tarbosaurus. The bone shows multiple 
> bites made in three distinctive styles termed 'punctures', 
> 'drag marks' and 'bite-and-drag marks'. The distribution of 
> these bites suggest that the animal was actively selecting 
> which biting style to use based on which part of the bone was 
> being engaged. The lack of damage to the rest of the 
> otherwise complete and articulated hadrosaur strongly implies 
> that this was a scavenging event, the first reported for a 
> tyrannosaur, and not feeding at a kill site.
> 
> Why the humerous?  
> If the carcass was old, then presumably either something else 
> ate all the good stuff or it had all rotted away.  If it was 
> rotten then surely some of the meatier parts of the carcass 
> would have more of a meal.  If something else had killed or 
> scavenged first then the other bones would have been marked.  
> If it had been a fresh carcass then again there would have 
> been choicer cuts.
> 
Actually, at least some of the feeding involved eating the big
deltapectoralis muscles, as evidence by the scrape marks on the DP crest.
This is not an insubstantial piece of meat!

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu   Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216                        
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661               

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843

Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Department of Geology
                        Building 237, Room 1117
                        University of Maryland
                        College Park, MD 20742 USA