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Extinct Animal Questions
Topic Started: Nov 26 2013, 10:24 PM (193,308 Views)
stargatedalek
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I'm not slow! That's just my moe!

I think we can be fairly certain it lacked one, giving those tend to fossilize on related species and we have some rather complete Stegosaurus.
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CyborgIguana
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Ok, a question that's been bugging me for quite a while: how exactly do we know Wendiceratops had the brow horns I always see it reconstructed with when from what I've seen from skeletals no such horns are included among the known remains?
Edited by CyborgIguana, Mar 17 2016, 02:23 PM.
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Mathius Tyra
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Rat snake is love... Rat snake is life

Is it possible that some kind of Mosasaur could deliver a venomous bite in the same manner of Helodermatid lizard or some monitors? Would this venom delivering method be useless under water?
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heliosphoros
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Moder sea snakes don't appear to have problems with venom delivery.
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Posted Image Guat
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Humuhumu
Mar 6 2016, 06:59 PM
Is it likely for Ankylosaurus to frequent swamps and wet areas?
Is this plausible?

Also could it be possible for any Abelisaurs to have lived in Laramidia?
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CyborgIguana
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Humuhumu
Mar 17 2016, 04:53 PM
Also could it be possible for any Abelisaurs to have lived in Laramidia?
IIRC we know of at least one or two European abelisaurs.
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Taurotragus
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So, I've seen several reconstructions of large to medium-sized ceratopsians rearing up on their hind legs. Could someone tell me if this was possible?
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Jules
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Mihi est imperare orbi universo

CyborgIguana
Mar 17 2016, 05:30 PM
Humuhumu
Mar 17 2016, 04:53 PM
Also could it be possible for any Abelisaurs to have lived in Laramidia?
IIRC we know of at least one or two European abelisaurs.
There's Tarascosaurus from France, not sure if there's another.
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Ztlabraptor211
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Genusaurus and Arcovenator were both found in France as well
Edited by Ztlabraptor211, Mar 17 2016, 08:44 PM.
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CyborgIguana
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CyborgIguana
Mar 17 2016, 02:23 PM
Ok, a question that's been bugging me for quite a while: how exactly do we know Wendiceratops had the brow horns I always see it reconstructed with when from what I've seen from skeletals no such horns are included among the known remains?
Still haven't received an answer to this question.
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Mathius Tyra
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Rat snake is love... Rat snake is life

heliosphoros
Mar 17 2016, 04:19 PM
Moder sea snakes don't appear to have problems with venom delivery.
The problem is sea snakes delivers their differently. They inject venom right into prey's blood vessel with syringe-liked fangs. Helodermatid lizards, on the other hand, mix their venom produced by venom gland with saliva, turning it into cocktail of death which then would be absorbed into prey's wound after the lizard lands a nice, mouthful bite.

What I am curious about is that if the latter method work well underwater or not.
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BossMan, Jake
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Son of God

@iguana I think that just comes down to phylogenetics considering it was IIRC a chasmosaurinae
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CyborgIguana
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Nope, centrosaur according to Wikipedia.
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Incinerox
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Āeksiot Zaldrīzoti

PrimevalBrony
Mar 16 2016, 05:13 PM
What kind of theropod do you think Embasaurus is?


When it was first described back in 1931 by some dude called Anatoly Nikolaevich Riabinin, it was a really half-assed job using 1920s logic. And that logic placed Embasaurus among the megalosaurids.

However, using a more modern way of looking at things, Mickey Mortimer's made an unofficial blog post about it, here:
http://theropoddatabase.blogspot.hk/2010/01/mysterious-embasaurus.html

And she, using a more updated way of thinking and actually comparing it to other, better described species across the theropoda, put Embasaurus somewhere around Xiongguanlong in the tyrannosauroid family tree.

Honestly this doesn't surprise me, even if the logic I used was also half assed - "Tyrannosauroid" was the first thing that popped into my head given it's from Kazakhstan, where all theropod data available that I'm aware of belong to tyrannosauroids.

Although, given its age of 140 million years, I'm a little bit more tempted to say it was closer to Eotyrannus. I'm surprised Eotyrannus never came up in the blog post.

CyborgIguana
 
Ok, a question that's been bugging me for quite a while: how exactly do we know Wendiceratops had the brow horns I always see it reconstructed with when from what I've seen from skeletals no such horns are included among the known remains?

...

Nope, centrosaur according to Wikipedia.


Earlier centrosaurines had brow horns. Wendiceratops was one such basal centrosaurine. It's literally only those derived species in the that have tiny to no brow horns and a long nasal horn (not counting the pachyrhinosaurini and their nasal bosses).

Mathius Tyra
 
The problem is sea snakes delivers their differently. They inject venom right into prey's blood vessel with syringe-liked fangs. Helodermatid lizards, on the other hand, mix their venom produced by venom gland with saliva, turning it into cocktail of death which then would be absorbed into prey's wound after the lizard lands a nice, mouthful bite.

What I am curious about is that if the latter method work well underwater or not.


I find it unlikely. Assuming they had venom, and used it the way varanids and helodermids did, most of the venom would be lost to the ocean and be an evolutionary waste. It's very likely that they secondarily lost it - I don't know exactly how much of an energy investment it is in lizards, but in snakes, it's a lot of energy devoted to restoring spent venom, and if it's useless, it'd a large waste of energy.

Not only that, but in helodermids and varanids, the venom in question does is different from snakes. Snake venom is usually some mixture of proteins and a neurotoxin which shuts down the nervous system to cause paralysis, or a hemotoxin which causes tissue degeneration, heart failure, and causes blood to do this:
Posted Image

Helodermids and varanids do the opposite. As said by wikipedia, it causes "inhibition of blood clotting, lowering of blood pressure, muscle paralysis, and the induction of hypothermia, leading to shock and loss of consciousness in envenomated prey".

It's pretty grim. But it takes a long time for that kind of venom to sink in. And for weaker venom or larger prey, multiple bites for it to work. And it's partly why you see helodermids really chew it into prey.

If they injected venom like snakes do (which they don't seem to have any specialisations for), it wouldn't be a problem, as Helios said.

But again, if it functioned like lizard venom, most of it would be washed out by the surrounding water, and therefore useless.

Besides, if we take one of the larger examples of predatory mosasaurs like, say, a 17m Mosasaurus hoffmanni, it probably wouldn't have even needed venom in the first place, based on the sort of damage possible with a single bite. They apparently had similarly shaped brains to sharks as well, so it's reasonable to assume that they had adopted similar hunting methods - target the prey's weak spots, and means of propulsion to prevent escape. Why cripple the target over a matter of days when you can do it in one or two strikes in minutes?
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BossMan, Jake
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Son of God

Many dinosaur skeletons or any prehistoric animal of that matter are usually not the actual bones but instead castings. What do they makes these placement bones out of?

Also Incinerox that article about Sereno's Rex skin is on the previous page ;)
Edited by BossMan, Jake, Mar 19 2016, 11:16 PM.
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