tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140938929136406282.post4432671586320493421..comments2023-11-18T15:42:20.251-05:00Comments on DinoGoss: Wrong for the Right ReasonsMatt Martyniukhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04220900229537564466noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140938929136406282.post-2805934744755181102012-08-02T09:00:10.458-04:002012-08-02T09:00:10.458-04:00@Marc
D'oh! Fixed that for ya :)@Marc<br />D'oh! Fixed that for ya :)Matt Martyniukhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04220900229537564466noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140938929136406282.post-27404981550623102512012-08-02T06:07:37.672-04:002012-08-02T06:07:37.672-04:00Excellent post, and a great comment thread (thanks...Excellent post, and a great comment thread (thanks all!), but my unjustifiably colossal ego couldn't let one error pass - for it was I that posted the LITC entry on the Halstead book! Me, I tell you!Marc Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01894846069567096349noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140938929136406282.post-57218434766981093192012-07-27T02:54:54.240-04:002012-07-27T02:54:54.240-04:00There's more to the association than just inci...There's more to the association than just incidental closeness to what was eventually found to be possibly the animal's own nest. But the kicker was two things, one not noted by Osborn in his description, but visible in the photograph of the whole specimen. For a look-see, try <a href="http://qilong.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/revising-the-oviraptor-myth/" rel="nofollow">this post of mine</a>, in which I lay out what Osborn actually argued. Osborn was wrong about two factors, that the association was incidence of predation and that the ventral projections of the palate were used for egg-eating (because he didn't realize they were incomplete palatal bones with no evidence for penetrating objects). New data has shown that oviraptorids would likely have been generalist, durophagous still, and possibly herbivorous to a large degree. Despite this, what is generally also overlooked is that there are remains of an animal (and eggshell) in the breast area around the arm. Osborn, and most others, never mention this.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140938929136406282.post-33301738222902952112012-07-26T23:27:13.631-04:002012-07-26T23:27:13.631-04:00Thanks Matthew (not Matty anymore?). I had read Br...Thanks Matthew (not Matty anymore?). I had read Brian's smackdown of Ford's Fantasy along with a few others (Darren Naish's response in Laboratory News itself is particularly good - http://www.labnews.co.uk/features/palaeontology-bites-back/ for those that haven't read it).<br /><br />I recall reading in a children's book many years ago that the sauropods' skeletons were lighter, higher up (or something - presumably referring to pneumatic vertebrae but not mentioned at all) but this was explained as being due to them having a water-line. At eight years-old, that made perfect sense.Mark Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05197384873600545231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140938929136406282.post-13953614574498109242012-07-26T22:46:57.298-04:002012-07-26T22:46:57.298-04:00If we confine ourselves to the tools and methods a...If we confine ourselves to the tools and methods available at the time, then we're really just saying we have no objective tools or methods. Buckland (1824) says Megalosaurus' vertebrae and limbs are like mammals, but that the teeth indicated it was oviparous (wha?!) and thus it was a member of Sauria, which contained lizards and crocodilians, but not snakes. So the method was choosing key characters and subjectively classifying, and this makes almost any result possible. Does it make much sense then to say their ideas were reasonable given their methods, when their methods had no way to judge between reasonable and unreasonable alternatives?<br /><br />As for Owen's hypothetical cladogram, remember he had Pterodactylus to work with too. Honestly, that would have probably emerged closest to birds until Compsognathus was described. Hey, 1858- the last time BAND was cladistically defensable. In any case, while Megalosaurus shares plenty of symplesiomorphies with crocs (thecodonty, saurischian pelvis, unfused bones, anteriorly concave dorsal centra), I can't think of many apparent synapomorphies it would share to the exclusion of birds. The fourth trochanter is one. Hmm. regarding size, since there is no biomechanical reason something with a femur 860 mm long can't be bipedal, Owen couldn't come up with it using good methods and would have had to rely on bad methods like personal incredulity. So again, their crappy methods led to crappy ideas.Mickey Mortimerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08831823442911513851noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140938929136406282.post-47854637181619854412012-07-26T09:52:34.006-04:002012-07-26T09:52:34.006-04:00@ Mickey Good points. While I was mainly talking a...@ Mickey Good points. While I was mainly talking about making the most sound decision based on the tools and methods available at the time, I have to wonder if, given that the available sample size of non-avian panavians at the time was essentially 2, if even had Owen produced a decent cladogram Megalosaurus and Iguanodon would not have been pulled over to the pancroc side. Even if not, as you said bipedality would be ambiguous, and I'd argue given the extremely large body sizes relative to crocs and birds, quadrupedality would still have been the more conservative conclusion.<br /><br />@Mark<br />I'm not sure how seriously the nose-deep sauropod thing was ever taken by real scientists (though I feel like this has probably been covered at TetZoo or SV-POW at some point). Certainly the pneumatic vertebrae of sauropods was noted very early on, at least.<br /><br />More problems with this scenario are mentioned here: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/dinosaur/2012/04/aquatic-dinosaurs-not-so-fast/<br />It seems obvious that this kind of depiction should have been seen as unrealistic from the get-go, so I wouldn't include it in the list of outdated ideas that were defensible at the time.Matt Martyniukhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04220900229537564466noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140938929136406282.post-27201507594900600072012-07-26T01:41:31.712-04:002012-07-26T01:41:31.712-04:00I essentially agree with what you've said abou...I essentially agree with what you've said about the eggs and the posture of <i>Megalosaurus</i>, <i>Iguanodon</i>, and <i>Hylaeosaurus</i> (one and a half out of three isn't too bad!), altho' I agree with Mickey about being more circumspect about assigning eggs to species described only from skeletal material.<br /><br />However, what about silliness such as sauropods up to their nostrils in water? Was this ever taken seriously by 20th century palaeontologists or was it some sort of children's book meme that was started by a writer of popular-science books or, perhaps, a "researcher" way out of their field? I ask because this hypothesis (and other similar flights of fantasy) seems fairly easily to falsify with the knowledge and methods that were available at the time.Mark Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05197384873600545231noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140938929136406282.post-50246298002253809732012-07-25T21:44:36.062-04:002012-07-25T21:44:36.062-04:00I agree in general, but...
There are more complet...I agree in general, but...<br /><br />There are more complete Spinosaurus specimens known (though privately owned), which don't indicate anything too surprising about its anatomy.<br /><br />Did it really make sense to attribute the eggs to Protoceratops just because they were both abundant? While attributing them to Oviraptor in the 20s may have been just as problematic, surely the most scientifically defensable choice Osborn et al. could have made was to not assign the eggs to a genus.<br /><br />Regarding early reconstructions of Megalosaurus, that's surely due to their crappy methods back in the 1800s. If they had used synapomorphies and cladistic analysis, even the Megalosaurus paralectotypes would probably have emerged sister to Aves due to the inturned femoral head, long pubis and ischium, appressed metatarsals, more than four sacrals, elongate pre/postacetabular processes, open acetabulum, etc.. And if that was the case, then bipedality would be ambiguous.Mickey Mortimerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08831823442911513851noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-140938929136406282.post-76755535604468953562012-07-25T19:14:17.797-04:002012-07-25T19:14:17.797-04:00"While we can now recognize the eggs as ovira..."While we can now recognize the eggs as oviraptorid rather than ornithischian in anatomy, it's always remotely possible that the theropod was raiding the nest of a different species or even another Oviraptor."<br /><br />While brooding is the most likely possibility, I can't help but wonder why no one else ever mentions the possibility of cannibalism. AFAIK, you're the 1st, so thanks for that.<br /><br />-JD-manAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com