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Extinct Animal Questions
Topic Started: Nov 26 2013, 10:24 PM (193,324 Views)
54godamora
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what extinct animals, not counting tyrannosaurs, had a good sense of smell?
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Paleodude
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ex-Krampus

54godamora
Jan 15 2016, 04:32 PM
what extinct animals, not counting tyrannosaurs, had a good sense of smell?
A good majority of large theropod dinosaurs had an excellent sense of smell like Allosaurus, also if your looking for mammals we have Archaeotherium (Palmer, D., ed. (1999). The Marshall Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals. London: Marshall Editions. p. 267. ISBN 1-84028-152-9.). As for aquatic animals pliosaurs (Carpenter, K. (1997). "Comparative cranial anatomy of two North American Cretaceous plesiosaurs." Pp. 191-216 in Callaway, J.M. and Nicholls, E.L. (eds.), Ancient Marine Reptiles. Academic Press.) and most non-filter feeding sharks.
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54godamora
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i was mainly looking for mammals and crocs.
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

Should've specified.

Terrestrial mammals generally have a good sense of smell anyway. If they behaved like modern ones, scent would have been highly important not only for finding food, but served a large role in communication too.

Crocs would have differed little from their modern counterparts as well.

Though, given their relationship to New World vultures, teratorns would have likely shared their incredible sense of smell (Old World vultures, on the other hand, cannot smell at all).

Large, predatory theropods also ad an acute sense of smell. Most predators do anyway.
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Mathius Tyra
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Rat snake is love... Rat snake is life

Not all new world vultures have good sense of smell though. The king vulture, black vulture and both species of condors can't smell well, so they find carcass with eye sight mainly or following the odor-homing vultures like the turkey and the yellow headed.
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

Oh okay, a good sense of smell is unique to Cathartes as a genus then. I thought it was all cathartids that had it.
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Posted Image Slappio
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What position did sauropods keep their necks in, and how flexible were they?
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

Slappio
Jan 19 2016, 08:20 PM
What position did sauropods keep their necks in, and how flexible were they?
This has been a point of major debate for many, MANY years. And it still is.

My research tells me that it really it depends on the sauropod in question. No sauropod had a particularly flexible neck like long necked birds which can bend their necks in all sorts of ways. Sauropods were capable of turning their necks in wide arcs in all directions though.

As for natural posture, some are more obvious - Brachiosaurus and such, thanks to their raised shoulders and sloped backs, end up naturally having a sloped neck when posed absolutely neutral. It's likely that their natural posture had their necks posed at near vertical as a result. That being said, they CAN'T go far past vertical.

The rest of the macronarians ie. Camarasaurus and the titanosaurs, probably kept their necks naturally at 45 degrees. Seems to be what the latest tests say anyway. These had the most maneuverable of sauropod necks.

Diplodocoids were comparatively restricted. They likely maintained that 45 degree angle in their necks, but their necks aren't as flexible, so they were more gently arced in their posture. They were actually most flexible DOWNWARDS, correlating with a grazing lifestyle for this lot. In Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus at least, newer hypotheses are that the strong muscles and oddly reinforced bones along the bottom of the necks, with a possibility of indication that small bosses were present suggest they even used these muscles to drive their necks downward when fighting.

I think if you check out Scott Hartman's skeletals, the postures he gives his sauropods is fairly accurate to what we know.
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Paleodude
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ex-Krampus

Does anyone know where I can find the paper that supports this piece of art; http://img08.deviantart.net/7e84/i/2011/129/5/8/__speedy_the_sauropod___by_paleopastori-d3fyr5t.jpg. More specifically bipedal sauropod hatchlings and whether it's a valid claim or not.
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CyborgIguana
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It's a legitimate and plausible hypothesis IIRC, though I'm not sure where it originated. Turns out even adults of at least diplodocids might've been able to move bipedally for brief periods of time as well.
Edited by CyborgIguana, Jan 20 2016, 12:58 AM.
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Acinonyx Jubatus
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I AM THE UNSHRINKWRAPPER!

If you're referring to Scott Hartman's Skeletal, I should point out that it was an April Fool's Joke. That said, I see no reason why it shouldn't be a valid hypothesis (I have heard nothing either way.)
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BossAggron
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Formerly Dilophoraptor

It feels like I remember something about Sauropodlet tracks running on two legs.
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Acinonyx Jubatus
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I AM THE UNSHRINKWRAPPER!

There are such tracks, even for adult sauropods, but as Diplodocids are rather back-heavy animals it is thought that the shallower manus prints eroded away.
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Paleop
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Paleopterix

considering many animals from the prince creek formation were smaller than their relatives is it possible that the cause may have been island dwarfism? could prince creek been on an island?
Edited by Paleop, Jan 21 2016, 05:27 PM.
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TheNotFakeDK
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200% Authentic

While perhaps not an island in the literal sense, it has been suggested in at least one paper that the Prince Creek locality was geographically separated from the rest of Laramidia by the ancestral Brooks Range, effectively creating "an island within the larger landmass of Laramidia".

This kind of faunal provincialism in Laramidia wouldn't be surprising, given that there also appears to be a clear distinction between northern and southern faunas during the Campanian.
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