Scots Taffer on 3/1/2009 at 02:52

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Congrats, Uncle Bacon.

Hewer on 3/1/2009 at 04:25

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I'm sure they all get put up on the refrigerator, and everybody is so proud. :joke:



AWESOME Vivian.

Vivian on 3/1/2009 at 11:28

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Yeah. Basically. The field is still at the stage where crazy people get published spouting stuff they've basically pulled out of their arse and still have people listen (like Gregory Paul, unfortunately), so its a sadly needed thing to have someone in a position of authority (my supervisor, not me. Yet.) say 'uh, no.' It does mean we score a relatively easy publication though, so I shouldn't complain.

For more detail you'd have to go to the relevant references, especially for the current limb function stuff, its pretty in-depth and quite confusing at times (even the basic primary function of some major muscles in bird legs are controversial at the moment). This is more just the dino-science equivalent of 'I Love The 90's', although we snuck some rather opinionated stuff about femoral articulation in there. Basically, cool stuff of the last few years = complicated biomech simulation, birds use stubby proto-wings to climb steep stuff, four-winged dinosaurs (?), birds have a lot of 3D limb control done passively by weird off-axis joints, T rex still not able to run at 400 Mph etc.

I get a moderate consultancy fee at the moment for telling Dangerous Productions their dinosaurs are the wrong colour (which is fun! Like i have ANY IDEA what colour a Deinonychus is, I just told them it lived in a swamp so maybe copy a heron). Although I get to nitpick them on anatomy sometimes. They're trying to make a serious documentary about dinosaur biology, it should be pretty cool, actually.

Cheers!

David on 3/1/2009 at 15:50

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"I said this dinosaur is electric blue with orange stripes, damnit!" http://www.ttlg.com/gbm/sothere.gif

Vivian on 3/1/2009 at 19:48

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Probably just to lighten the limb - if you can perform a stereotyped motion using a complex passive mechanism of ligaments and joint surfaces, you need less heavy muscles lying around the place. Such things are quite common in things, we have a similar thingy in our knees, so do horses and elephants, so do most things probably. Its just taken a long time for people to move beyond the 'just a hinge!' viewpoint with dinosaur joints.

I think the use of wings initially to climb steep surfaces has a hell of a lot going for it - its been proven that chicks do that using their fluffy 'proto-wings' (which seem quite similar to the feathery forelimbs of many raptor-type dinosaurs), its a useful thing to do, and most importantly, its a continuum. Even aerodynamic forces from stubby little winglets come in handy to get up slopes, and all you have to imagine is the beasts ascending steeper and steeper slopes and gaining more and more aerodynamic control until, hey, they're running straight up a vertical wall, which is pretty much flying - thats what chicks do during their development. The old ground up/trees down theories also have a lot going for them, but what they don't have is such good evidence from the behaviour of modern dinosaurs. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny and all that Q.I. crap.

The four-winged dinosaurs with wing-trousers (Microraptor and a few others) are a major spanner in that theories works, however. My guess is that they're essentially wierdos, an offshoot, not really anything to do with the development of 'normal' bird flight. There's a bunch of guys trying to prove they could fully splay their hips like a flying squirrel, but I'm not convinced - maniraptoran hips are pretty tightly enclosed affairs, I think you'd have to break the joint to stick the hindlimbs out sideways.