The most abundant large ones would have been a formidable opponent. It is generally agreed that it would have eaten other dinosaurs. These traits support the slasher hypothesis, he concluded. Lastly, the humoral head was part of an unusual quasi-ball-and-socket joint that would have provided considerable mobility for slashing. Furthermore, the edges of the claws are beveled and sharp like those of a bear rather than flat like the grasping claws of an eagle. Two claws give more slashing power than three, because each one can apply heavier pressure. In addition to strength, he noted each arm ended in two sharp claws about four inches long. Stanley continued to put the pieces together. This considerable strength has been known for about 35 years, but people have overlooked it. Because it’s been largely ignored, I myself only recently learned of the evidence that the arms were strong. “Also, the fact that the arms did atrophy has led people to assume that they were puny, but they were not. rex skeleton from above, Cullen says, it becomes very clear just how bulky and heavy and strong of an animal that T. “The arms seem small in relation to the huge size of their possessors, and I think this has misled people,” said Stanley. rex was also just plain big at 40 feet from snout to tail, and heavier than an elephant. As the arms approached their final size, natural selection kicked in and made both their bones and their muscles very strong and able to withstand the impact of slashing. No longer being selected for, the arms were selected against. These atrophied during the evolution that led to the tyrannosaurids because the jaws took over their grasping function. Tyrannosaur ancestors used long arms primarily for grasping. This fierce dinosaur is known for its giant head, powerful jaws and overall fearsome appearance-except for those arms. At over three feet long, these arms were not as tiny as often portrayed, and their traits indicate that they were actually well-adapted for vicious slashing at close quarters, paleontologist Steven Stanley of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Geology and Geophysics said at the recent Geological Society of America meeting. rex as having been vestigial-features left over from evolutionary past, but no longer useful. For more than a century, many paleontologists have viewed the small arms of T. Tyrannosaurus rex may have had small arms, but it was no pushover.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |