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Extinct Animal Questions
Topic Started: Nov 26 2013, 10:24 PM (193,319 Views)
Fluffs
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Pull my finger!

Who's responsible for hoarding/not publishing the Utahraptor paper?
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Incinerox
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BossMan, Jake
Jan 29 2016, 01:50 PM
As for the Edmontosaurus in my opinion it seems very strange and off to say that the huge tail specimen is from an edmontosaurus. Think about it, this animal is the arguably the best know North American Hadrosaur and there are fossils ranging from near 40 foot adults to small youngsters. Overall we know of somewhere of a thousand individual specimens. And so this giant specimen is in my mind very unlikely a large edmontosaurus. Not to mention that E.Regalis the older species is generally larger. In my personal opinion this tail may represent the American variety of Shantungosaurus. This is my opinion and I don't have much more evidence to support that.
See, there's two issues with this:

1) Edmontosaurus annectens is actually the larger species. See, E. regalis WAS the larger species, until everyone agreed that the likes of "Trachodon", "Claosaurus", "Thespesius" "Anatosaurus" and most importantly, "Anatotitan" all fell under the genus Edmontosaurus, it boosted the maximum size and known data for E. annectens by a long way. That said, most of our known data comes from individuals that aren't fully grown, and died at around 8-9m in length.

2) Edmontosaurus annectens is so completely known that we can actually identify it by soft tissues alone (same with E. regalis to a very minor extent, thanks to its fleshy head crest - the rest of the animal's skin remains unknown). The soft tissue preserved on the tail of MOR V 007 matches up with those of other E. annectens, so we can't really argue with that level of confirmation. Similar degrees of identification can be made with other hadrosaur species (Saurolophus species can be identified from each other in that, assuming scale arrangement was indicative of colour pattern, one was striped, and the other was spotted).

Though, we don't exactly have "thousands" of specimens. Probably a few dozen. Even then, it's important to note that Triceratops, the dominant animal in the Hell Creek fossil record, still has not yielded us a complete skeleton with skin intact like Edmontosaurus, and we're only just starting to make sense of its growth series this decade. Same goes for T. rex, of which we have about 40.
Edited by Incinerox, Jan 29 2016, 03:49 PM.
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CyborgIguana
Jan 28 2016, 05:45 PM
Well, are there any animals today that have beaks covered by lips? It would kind of make having a beak redundant IMO.
Softshell turtles do.
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Incinerox
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No they don't. Their jaws are toothless, but it doesn't mean they have a keratinous sheath by default. Take a look at their skull:
Posted Image

Compare that with an actually beaked turtle, like this snapper:
Posted Image
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There is a keratinous sheath, it's just not hooked anywhere nearly as much as a regular turtle.
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Paleop
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Paleopterix

how large were Lepisosteus occidentalis and Protoscaphirhynchus squamosus? I can't find data for them.
Edited by Paleop, Jan 29 2016, 05:33 PM.
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Stan The Man
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What if certain theropods bobbed their heads like pigeons? Not just ones you could kick to death, but also larger fellers like carnosaurs and tyrannosaurs, and anything in between.
Edited by Stan The Man, Jan 30 2016, 04:58 PM.
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Incinerox
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They don't have the necks to allow for it.

It'd be amusing to see regardless.
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CyborgIguana
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Not even all modern birds bob their heads IIRC.
Edited by CyborgIguana, Jan 30 2016, 04:27 PM.
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TheToastinator
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A piece of toast and a terminator.

Did Mosasaurus have its nostrils on the top of its head like a whale's blowhole?
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Paleop
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Paleopterix

Posted Image
looks like they were positioned halfway up the snout on top of the skull. the nostrils may very well have resembled a whales blowhole in structure.
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Incinerox
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Honestly if you want a reference on where the nostrils go, compare it with their modern relatives.

Monitor lizards have a nearly identical skull structure to mosasaurs, shape and size aside. So if we have a look at a Komodo dragon skull:
Posted Image

You'll notice there's the actual nasal openings about midway up the skull. But, as you can see from those depressions in the snout towards the tip of the nose, you'll find that a lot of the nose consists of soft tissue, and the nostrils sit at the tip of the snout:
Posted Image

So if we compare that with the skull in the previous post (Plioplatecarpus), you'll find those depressions are still there. This link takes you to (hopefully) a site where you can see multiple angles of the BHI replica (ie. the pic posted in the previous post):
http://www.bhigr.com/media/zoomslides/PlioplatecarpusSkl/

What's going on here is that the nostrils are still relatively close to the tip of the snout, but given the shape of the skull and the shallower depressions, the nostrils were less developed, set a little bit further back from the snout tip, and sat closer to the mid-line of the skull than those of the Komodo Dragon.
Edited by Incinerox, Jan 31 2016, 06:06 AM.
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Paleop
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Paleopterix

did Ornithomimus velox live in hell creek? and is the Struthiomimus sedens material from hell creek confirmed to not have been from a struthomimus?

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CyborgIguana
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No and no, AFAIK.
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BossMan, Jake
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Son of God

I thought struthiomimus was considered valid?
And I do believe there are some remains of ornitho from hell creek
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