Re: [dinosaur] "cheeky" question

I'm perusing Galton (1973) ("The cheeks of ornithischian dinosaurs") right now. If there's any more recent papers that address the cheek issue, let me know. Obviously these animals spent a lot of time masticating food - they have what amounts to a secondary palate - but I guess the question is whether they *needed* cheeks in order to efficiently process a bolus. Because we don't know (as Dr. Holtz just stated, tersely) that they were there, I assume we must ask if they *should*, or *could* have been present.

Also...Is there more technical term to refer to these structures than "cheeks"?

From: Thomas Richard Holtz <tholtz@umd.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2017 5:20 PM
To: Williams, Brandon R (West Kentucky Student)
Cc: Yazbeck, Thomas Michael; dinosaur-l@usc.edu
Subject: Re: [dinosaur] "cheeky" question

We still don't know.

That's (unfortunately) the answer.

On Wed, Apr 12, 2017 at 5:12 PM, Williams, Brandon R (West Kentucky Student) <bwilliams0401@kctcs.edu> wrote:

Hmm… I don’t know! This is a trciky question- I know that Ornithischians, had “leaf shaped” cheek teeth. I also, thought that Ornithischians had cheeks because, its what let them eat more resistant plant material. Please look at the picture below of an Ornithischian dinosaur.

From: dinosaur-l-request@usc.edu [mailto:dinosaur-l-request@usc.edu] On Behalf Of Yazbeck, Thomas Michael
Sent: Wednesday, April 12, 2017 3:58 PM
To: dinosaur-l@usc.edu
Subject: [dinosaur] "cheeky" question

Good day DML,

I have a *gnawing* (pun intended) question. Did ornithischians have cheeks? I was under the impression that ornithischians probably had them, due to inset tooth row, etc. But I know there's dissenting voices on the matter. Some pushback against the lipped-theropod hypothesis (the Daspletosaurus paper) has occurred so I'm wondering if there is also some reexamination of the whole ornithischian buccal apparatus, since we've been depicting them with cheeks since at least the 70s (I believe Galton was first to propose cheeked ornithischians). So cheeks or no cheeks?

Thomas Yazbeck

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu Phone: 301-405-4084
Principal Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology

Office: Geology 4106, 8000 Regents Dr., College Park MD 20742

Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/

Phone: 301-405-6965
Fax: 301-314-9661

Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars

Office: Centreville 1216, 4243 Valley Dr., College Park MD 20742
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Mailing Address:        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
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