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Craig Markley
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| Posted: 29 April 2013 at 6:23am | IP Logged | 1
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The skull JB used was of a mammal. How do reptile/bird skulls compare to their actual appearance?
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Terry Thielen
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| Posted: 29 April 2013 at 6:47am | IP Logged | 2
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This is a Turkey Vulture skull and living specimen. Vultures are pretty meaty in the head region. 
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Terry Thielen
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| Posted: 29 April 2013 at 6:51am | IP Logged | 3
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However, Feathers can make a lot of difference as in the case of the Barred Owl
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Terry Thielen
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| Posted: 29 April 2013 at 6:58am | IP Logged | 4
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Terry Thielen
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| Posted: 29 April 2013 at 7:02am | IP Logged | 5
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leaf tailed gecko
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Terry Thielen
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| Posted: 29 April 2013 at 7:28am | IP Logged | 6
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--"how high our own jaw muscles are attached. Needing an even greater mechanical advantage in order to deal with tough vegetation could easily have led to the development of the frill."
Peter Dodsen said in his book The Horned Dinosaurs that many herbivorous animals do not have very long jaw muscles. Muscles have the same amount of strength whether they are short or long. Length of a muscle, such as long leg muscles, have an ability to stretch to greater lengths. A mouth can only open so much and that seems to be impeded by cheeks to some extent and ceratopsians likely had cheeks. Greater strength is given when you have more muscles, which there are plenty of places to attach muscles on the face of ceratopsians without extending onto the frills.
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Terry Thielen
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| Posted: 29 April 2013 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | 7
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Also, if anyone is interested in Dinosaur Anatomy, Ohio University has been doing some great work. http://www.ohio.edu/research/communications/witmer.cfm
Check out WitmerLab's YouTube channel to see wonderful reconstructions that VID (virtual interactive dinosaur) have created.
*edited to include link
Edited by Terry Thielen on 29 April 2013 at 12:49pm
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joe glasgow
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| Posted: 29 April 2013 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | 8
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I studied geology at university and we did a few weeks on how muscle is connected to bone and how it was possible to gauge how much muscle mass might have been present on the living animal. Interesting stuff but we never discussed ears. I'd actually like to know if there is a first ever recorded instance of an external ear in the fossil record.
Are external ears purely a mammalian thing that also double as radiators for the warm blood?
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Carmen Bernardo
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| Posted: 29 April 2013 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | 9
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That's always been a source of mystery for me. Why did the mammals develop the ear lobes, but the birds did not? I suspect that it might be related to how mammals have developed a sense of hearing that sometimes goes into ranges that our human ears cannot reach, while birds have primarily developed eyesight far more advanced than most mammals have, especially for predators like hawks and eagles.
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Armindo Macieira
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| Posted: 29 April 2013 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | 10
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I think ears also work as heat regulators, at least animals of the same family in warmer climates tend to have bigger ears so they can disperse more body heat. The fox is a great example.
I don't know it that's the reason for the existence of ears (I don't believe it is), but it's a function they have in some cases.
About dinosaurs with ears, well, I believe we can't know for sure but both reptiles and birds don't have ears and they're the closer relatives of dinosaurs (maybe even the direct descendent, in the case of birds).
Besides they would look silly... imagine a T-Rex with big floppy ears! :)
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Terry Thielen
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| Posted: 29 April 2013 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | 11
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owls have external ears of a sort. http://www.owlpages.com/articles.php?section=owl+physiology& amp;title=hearing
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Robbie Parry
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| Posted: 30 April 2013 at 6:26pm | IP Logged | 12
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"Type casting" has a lot to do with how we portray other animals. Hippos
are kinda cute looking, so we imagine them to be docile. Like the way
we basically swap the personalities of chimps and gorillas.
***
I was surprised when I was told that giraffes kick lions to death if they get too close. Giraffes look like they'd harm no-one!
Chimps and gorillas are an interesting comparison. Makes me intrigued to think that in franchises like PLANET OF THE APES, the chimps are fairly altruistic and the gorillas are nasty soldiers. From what I've seen on nature documentaries, gorillas can be gentle, but chimps, who we often see dressed up in clothes, can be extremely nasty.
For me, bears are interesting: what is the appeal of the teddy bear? A real bear would cause you major problems, so why would people cuddle up to a teddy bear?
As for this topic, it seems almost everything I learnt at school (Brontosaurus, anyone?) is now outdated. All those textbooks in school about dinosaurs, what they looked like, what they ate, etc. is all out of date. Which is good, I guess it shows science isn't necessarily dogmatic.
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Topic Closed)
