Hi Dave, <br><br>I had been at the Yahoo! limit
as to the number of clubs I could belong to. I just
quit some of the dead ones and joined this one
yesterday. <br><br>This really looks like a good group.
<br><br>T. K.
The Newark basin is a Mesozoic rift that opened
just at the right time to have caught an occasional
dino in its sediments. <br><br>I don't know any
specifics about NJ, but there have been footprints and at
least one skeleton discovered in Pennsylvania, near
Cooperstown (Coopersburg?), just south of South Mountain in
sediments from a similarly-aged rift. <br><br>You might try
the NJ Geologic Survey and see if they have any info
available over the web. <br><br>Pa posts fossil-hunting
info on their Pa Geol Surv pages. NJ may also.
<br><br>T. K.
Dave, <br><br>I assume you are referencing the
configuration of the shoulder girdle for a slow, lumbering
beast, and the dragging tail? <br><br>Or did you mean
that the eyes were really blue? <br><br>T. K.
You might log in to the "On the Origins of
Species" club. I just posted a response to a question you
put there a week ago. It's not a very active club,
which is why I'm mentioning it here. There's a certain
individual who has been harassing a lot of people in the
archaeology forums, and the message concerns this somewhat.
Finally putting in some units. We have found a
lot of red wear, mostly of a southern infuence(this
is not my area, just repeatting what Michelle told
me.)Lots more pearl wear and white wear. The crew has
found very little glass and few fakes. However a piece
of embossed glass was found today. We have found two
crinoid stems and Leslie found a Buffalo nickle (although
wrong period, still kinda neat) I have found a lot of
brick in the T-probes. I'm done with the probes and the
Muncell, YEAH! (my hands are so sore!)
Hi Dave<br><br>We'd love to have your weekly
updates in our Field Archaeology club, especially since
we have a few members doing similar work and a few
who are interested in what field archaeology entails.
This week, I found a late Archaic site (including a
nice point) on survey, as well as various historic
ceramics and old walls in the forest.
Going is slow. found a lot of white ware and
pearl wear. A large amount of hard and soft
brick.<br>Little in the way of glass. One nail and one possible
hinge. Most common is fire cracked rock and brick.
Well we are rolling along now. Dispite the rain
and a few "technical troubles" the grid is in place.
We have identified 3 sites. 1st one is a historic
site (approx. 1820 Ad.) The other two are prehistoric.
We have surface collected a 15 meter area. Finding
mostly ceramics, crockery and glass. We have also two
soil features, I have not yet had the oppertunity to
investigate further (surface collecting has top priority) so
I have to wait. more later.
Years ago I used to find great quantities of
cretaceous cephalopods in locations along the C&D Canal in
nearby Maryland. Both straight and coiled forms were
available. At the time I was living near Burlington NJ.
Ok guys, I'm the one needing assistance now. Who is the best on sauropods? I
really need a hand here. No one I know personaly is a sauropod expert. Please
help.
Rain, mud, blood, no beer. Life goes on.
<br><br>I found out today that I won't be doing my probes
at 3 meter intervals, they have to be done at 1
meter intervals. I was hoping to do them at 3-5 meters
until I found the plow disturbance.<br><br>From now on
I will only give weekly up dates.
Staff meeting am. It was decided who was doing
what. I'm doing the geology. And I will mentor one high
school student.<br><br>After lunch everyone went out to
the site, but Chad and I had to go back to the
University to teach the bone bed.
Lab is set up. We are using an old Rec. room from when the fort was a POW camp.
This is the best of situatins. Only troble is that our computers are not on line
as of yet.
Fort Harrison dig- not much to report, staff
meeting.<br><br><br>Martin University Bone Bed- Had to cancil today, a stray
Pit-bull ran everyone off.As far as I know, Animal Control
has not shown up yet.
Ding Ding Ding.....We have a winner! you are right. One qualification to be a
dinosaur is that it has to have straight legs. Congrats, you have a good eye.
Although I didn't get to study it for long and I'm no expert (chuckles to
herself), I can see that the front legs are bent in a reptile fashion, instead
of straight and underneath the dino.
Small deep set eyes would be better protected
than larger eyes. An animal chasing their intended
dinner through the dense conifer and cycad forests of
the Cretaceous would need protection for their eyes.
If a predator looses an eye it is likely to starve
to death. A predator in perfect condition is only
successful once out of several attempts to make a kill.
Imagine a Tyrannosaurus chasing a duckbill through a
dense forest. One stray branch and Tyrannosaurus looses
an eye, it also in the long run, looses its life.
Two small functioning eyes are better than one large
eye. <br><br>For those of you who have not undergone
the bowel loosening experience of being close to some
Elephants in the middle of dense forest, I can assure you
that you can smell and hear them a long time before
you can see them.(Colin McHenry Scavenging and Sexual
Dimorphism in T.Rex) You can ask Mr. McHenry, binocular
vision would be useless in such a
forest.<br><br>According to Currie the shape and location of the
Tyrannosaur's ear it could probably pick up and distinguish
sounds coming from different directions. It could also
hear sounds at a very low frequency which would be
helpful in hunting animal that make low resonant
sounds.(Ultimate) We are sure that many duck billed dinosaurs made
a low frequency noise.<br><br>I have already
discussed the sense of smell of Tyrannosaurus. It is true
that as far as we know, only the turkey vulture had
abetter sense of smell than Tyrannosaurus. The turkey
vulture is a scavenger, so Tyrannosaurus must have been a
scavenger as well. Not so fast, the lappet faced vulture,
as well as most old world vultures have no sense of
smell at all.(Microsoft Encarta 95) <br><br>I have
expressed Dr. Horner's reservations about Tyrannosaurus'
ability to catch and hold an animal with its' little
arms. How would an animal catch and kill its' prey with
out arms? The same way a crocodile or an alligator
does. With its' mouth. While a Tyrannosaurus probably
did not drown their prey, a crocodile does not have a
five foot long head. A head filled with thirty, six
inch long serrated spikes. Teeth set in a jaw capable
of pressures of several thousand pounds per square
inch.(Greg Erickson's Doctoral Thesis Montana State
University) Teeth capable of crushing bone ripping sinew and
shredding the flesh of any creature it could
catch.<br><br>I have tried to present here the argument made in
favor of Tyrannosaurus as a scavenger. This has been
difficult. The evidence is overwhelmingly on the side of
Tyrannosaurus as a predator. In my opinion there just is not
enough evidence to support the idea of Tyrannosaurus as
a creature that made its living as a full time
scavenger. I have then tried to offer evidence to the
contrary, and I believe I have done this. It is my opinion
that Tyrannosaurus was indeed a predator, and a very
good one at that. I don't think it can be stated any
plainer than the way Bob Bakker said it,"T. Rex was
focused on its' prey with sight, sound, and smell and if
it was focused on you, you're in big
trouble!"<br><br>David P. Stinson, student at Martin University,
Indianapolis, In.<br>E-mail
jurassicdave@...<br><br><br>Works Cited:<br><br>The Complete T.Rex John
R. Horner
Ph. D. and Don Lessem Souvenir Press 1993 <br><br>The
Ultimate Guide to T.Rex Jane Armstrong for the Discovery
Channel (video)<br><br>"Prehistoric Predators" Paleoworld
Robert H. Rosen York Street Film and Video Productions
Ink. for The Learning Channel 1997 <br><br>T.rex
Exposed Mark J. Davis for WGBH Boston
1998<br><br>Scavenging and Sexual Dimorphism in T. Rex Colin McHenry
Respective Authors 1995<br><br>Doctoral Thesis Greg Erickson
Montana State University 1996<br><br>Microsoft Encarta 95
CD-ROM the Microsoft Corporation 1994
The Caged Bird, Martin
University-1999<br><br>The<br>Buzzard King?<br>by David
Stinson<br>Tyrannosaur the
giant bumbling buzzard or the swift agile predator.
This question has been asked recently. And for
all<br>intents and purposes has been answered to
my<br>satisfaction. However, it just won't go away. Lets try to
put<br>it to bed now.<br><br>Dr. Jack Horner of
Montana<br>State University at Bozman has publicly stated
that<br>Tyrannosauride must have been scavengers(Horner The complete
T.<br>Rex page 203). Dr. Horner came to this
conclusion<br>while over seeing the preparation of a
Tyrannosaur<br>skeleton dug up by his team at Montana State. Horner
and<br>his team also discovered that the arm
of<br>Tyrannosaurus, although incredibly strong, was even less
useful<br>than previously believed(209). Tyrannosaur would
not<br>have been able to use these arms to help catch or
hold<br>a prey animal. This is a bad situation for
a<br>predator according to Dr.
Horner.<br><br>Another item<br>Horner asks us to look at is the
olfactory bulb of the<br>Tyrannosaur (the area of the brain
that controls the sense of<br>smell). The olfactory
bulb in Tyrannosaurus is bigger<br>(relative to it's
size) than any other known creature<br>except the
turkey vulture.(Armstrong ultimate Guide to<br>T-Rex )
An excellent sense of smell, says Horner
is<br>better suited to a scavenger than to a predator.
A<br>scavenger with a sense of smell as good as the one we
be<br>leave Tyrannosaurus had would have been
invaluable<br>locating a rotting corpse.(ultimate) Even humans with
our<br>meager nose can detect a rotting animal at
some<br>distance. Ever smell a deer hit along the highway
in<br>August?<br><br> Tyrannosaurus had stereoscopic vision. You
can<br>tell by the placement of the eye orbits on the
skull<br>and the way the muzzle narrows giving an
unobstructed<br>overlapping field of view. This is rare in dinosaurs.
Horner<br>points out "Big eyes (such as those belonging to
birds<br>of prey, which have binocular vision?) would
more<br>useful"(ultimate), T. Rex had small eyes for it's
size.<br><br>This<br>is the 'gist' as they say, of the pro
scavenger<br>point of view.<br>Now I would like to examine to
other<br>side of the argument, the pro
predator<br>opinion.<br><br>According to Dr. Philip Currie of the
Royal Terrel
Museum<br>of Paleontology no large land dwelling animal
has<br>ever been purely a scavenger.(Rosen
Prehistoric<br>predators) Dr. Robert Bakker curator of the Tate Museum
in<br>Casper, Wyoming, said "It's an ecological rule, no
animal<br>is a pure scavenger, lions kill, but they will
also<br>scavenge. Hyenas scavenge but, they will also kill,
wolves<br>scavenge but, they will also kill bison", Bakker
also<br>insists that T.Rex would have actively hunted live
prey<br>and ate festering fly ridden, maggot
covered<br>carcuses, both.(Davis T.rex Exposed)<br><br>So
what are<br>Tyrannosaurus' tools of predation?
Stereoscopic vision as we<br>have already discussed.
Stereoscopic vision allows an<br>animal to see depth. Depth
perception would be of great<br>value to a predator who is
trying to catch a smaller,<br>quicker animal. The size
of the eyes is irrelevant to<br>diurnal hunters, for
the most part. Great White and other<br>sharks have
very small eyes in relation to their body<br>size. It
is a good thing for baby harp seal that
mother<br>polar bear has small eyes in relation to her size
and<br>is there for, an ineffectual hunter.<br><br>(cont.)
I will try to keep this club as current as my schedule will allow. However, I am
currently involved with a dig, and I am also teaching K-12 Pre-history of
Indiana and paleo/anthro/osteo.
I will try to keep this club as current as my schedule will allow. However, I am
currently involved with a dig, and I am also teaching K-12 Pre-history of
Indiana and paleo/anthro/osteo.