Steve has been reading up on Pre-historic critters out of boredom... and he learned some things that were both facinating and... kinda disappointing.

Raptos can't disembowel things!? WTF!?

Yes, its true. Apparently, a recent study was done on Velociraptors and their supposed ability to disembowel prey with their hindclaws. They made a robotic raptor claw, and tried to use it to slash a pig carcass. The claw was unable to tear through the pig's flesh; all it did was hook in and get stuck. It makes sense, as Raptor claws are hooklike, and as such, would be unable to rip through tough dinosaur hyde. It is now believed that raptors used these claws to grasp onto prey while their jaws did all the dirty work.

Triceratopses apparently didn't ram their enemies.

Yeah. ANOTHER study was done on Triceratops to see if it could charge and ram predators with its horns as is often depicted. Like the raptor, they built a robotic Triceratops skull, and flung it down a rail at a simulated T-Rex at 15mph, Triceratops' apparent top speed. The Triceratops slammed into the T-Rex...

...And while its two main horns *did* pierce the Tyrannosaur's hyde, it broke its snout, and its nose horn didn't even leave behind a scratch. It is now belived that instead of charging dramatically, it would have stood its ground and bucked its horns if a predator came close.

And on top of that, Megarachne has been discredited!

THE biggest spider ever to have walked the earth was exposed by a British scientist as a "mistake".

The size of a small dog, Megarachne servinei, a giant prehistoric monster, was widely regarded as the biggest and most terrifying spider ever, measuring more than a metre in length with 50cm legs.


A fossil of the beast was discovered in 1980 and Argentine palaeontologist Mario Hünicken classified it as a spider which had crawled the earth about 300 million years ago.

Megarachne servinei appeared in the Guinness Book of Records as the "World’s Largest Spider" and nightmarish models of the creature were exhibited in museums around the world.

But mystery always surrounded the accuracy of Hünicken’s findings. The owner of the fossil kept it locked away in a bank vault so no-one has ever been able to verify it - until now.

Dr Paul Selden, an arachnid expert at the University of Manchester was allowed special access - and found the "spider" is in fact more crab than creepy- crawly. His conclusion solves one of the greatest mysteries in the study of palaeontology or fossils. "As soon as I saw it I knew it wasn’t a spider, but an ancient aquatic creature called a sea scorpion," Dr Selden said. (That's the same kind of animal Death Stinger is, incasey'alldidn'tknow.)

"It has large claws and two big compound eyes whereas spiders normally have eight small eyes. It also appears to have a very robust body or shell with ridges across its back which is not found in any spider known to man. This creature probably lived in a swamp and used its claws for sweeping up mud. If you had to compare it to something which is alive today you would probably choose a large crab or a lobster, not a spider."


...The Megarachne being discredited miffs me most. Mainly 'cause I wrote a SciFi story when I was a kid that featured Megarachne in it. I gave up on it ages ago, butstill. THEY RUINED MY CHILDHOOD DREAMS. ANGST.


Oh well. At least T-Rex is still regarded as a Predator, Jack Horner and his crazy, bias laden, hole filled scavenger theories aside. xp

Ahhh make it stop! Steve did yet another long-rambly topic and ruins everything..I still want to believe in those mystical facts..they make dinos look cooler...

In any case guess that screws alot of facts about dinosaurs...

:o

Meh, I like the dog-sized lobster better. And that thing about the Triceratops disappoints me... But I refuse to believe that raptor's claws couldn't disembowel. Don't they have those super-long scythe-like toe claws? (Or maybe that was dienochyous?) How would slashing toenails be good for grasping prey?

Well, the thing is, they *aren't* scythe like. Raptor claws (all raptors, Deinonychus and Utahraptor included) are only pointed at the end, and have a strong curve to them; the inner edge isn't sharp at all, only the tip. Thus, raptor claws function more like meathooks then like sickles.

It is believed that Raptors would have hunted by using their claws to hook into larger prey. With their claws firmly dug in, they'd be impossible to shake off as a result, allowing more and more to pile on and nibble their prey to death before they eventually took 'em down with sheer force of numbers. Raptors merely hung on their prey and bit it to death, their claws were no good for slashing, and the experiments seem to prove it. If a raptor couldn't slice open a pig, it certainly wouldn't be able to slice open a hadrosaur or somesuch...

Yeah, because studies of the bones of exitinct animals that we only know about because we found those bones at all is the end all be all :rolleyes:

I don't care how good science is; unless someone goes all Jurassic Park (which I am now reading for the second time, best book ever!) and somehow clones dinosaurs perfectly, anything we "learn" about dinosaurs is pure assumption.

I couldn't care less about what scientists say they have found out about dinosaurs, it's all theory and will never be able to be proven.

I say believe in what ever you want to believe. If I want to believe that Raptors were vicious, blood thirsty, pack hunting, highly intelligent, gut tearing and flesh eating monsters then I will, no matter what scientists try to say otherwise.

one of my favoritest dino pictures as a kid was of raptors swarming some sort of big *** herbivore to deathm such as steve describbed. Go raptor meathooks!

Well, it's all we have to go by. As far as extinct animals go, the bones *are* the end-all-be-all. Raptor claws weren't properly shaped for slashing, and experiments don't lie.

They can't study *real* dinosaurs, however, they can take what they've learned from their anatomy and perform experiments.

For example, we can't get a real T-Rex to bite for us and show how powerful its bite was, but one can study the bite-marks left behind in the bones of their prey, compare it to the build of the Tyrannosaur's jaws and musculature and come up with a reasonable estimate, and perform and experiment to test said bite strength by pitting real Tyrannosaur teeth against flesh and bone. Through study of anatomy and emperimentation, paleontologists have concluded that a Tyrannosaurus could exert up to 13000lbs PSI of bite force.

Personally, I don't mind raptors being toned down... they're rather overrated dinosaurs, thanks in part to Jurassic Park's misportrayal of them. *Real* Dromeosaurids were far less dramatic and KewLzIez then what has been depicted in popular culture.

On a random note, the Jurassic Park movies don't seem to portray raptors as slashers... not once do we see a raptor *gut* somebody... they grasp and bite, just like they would in real life... and the one time we saw a raptor kill with a hindclaw, (In JP3), it *stabbed* with the claw, bringing it down on the back of the guy's skull. No slash. 'Sides, it's not like raptors couldn't disembowel at *all*... it'd just rip you open with its teeth, not its claws.



...That sounded wrong. Fanfic hath corrupted my brain. xp

As I said, I couldn't care less about what scientists say they can prove. You may call me stubborn, however I like my fantasies just the way they are, thank you ;)

You do in the book, which is far better then the movie (which isn't THAT bad, but still...)

Highlight below (I used my uber spoiler hiding skillz!) to read the passage from the book (only a fragment of a single sentence):

"...Wu was lying on his back, his body already torn open by the big claw..." (Page 335 of the newest Paperback edition)

END SPOILERS!

Well, I think JP has gotten more facts wrong than just the slashiness of the claws. But it makes perfect sense that its used more as hooks than slashes. Ever tried slashing something with your toe? Easier said than done unless its half your height. And raptors were small. The triceratops thing isnt surprising either. They seem more like wildebeast than elephant anyway.

Zelos: So if we're all free to ignore evidence and put our own personal assumptions above empirical discoveries, then am I free to believe you're stupid? You cant prove me wrong. :P

I also encourage you to believe you can fly, despite what your physics teachers may tell you. Find a tall bridge and prove us wrong. ;)

Actually, I could prove I wasn't stupid if it involved math and I was somehow able to send you my test scores from school...

And the thing with flying is that it is very easily proven that we can't fly ;)

With dinosaurs I just find it very hard to believe that, despite only knowing a single part of their anatomy, that we can suddenly learn everything there is to know about them and then say that they are rock solid facts. Notice I never once said I neccesarily disagree with all these theories about dinosaurs, it's just that without the real deal you can not be sure that anything is right about them. For all we know, every single thing we currently believe about dinosaurs might be wrong (at the rate scientists seem to be revising their beliefs on dionaurs, however, that actually may not be that far from the truth...)

Theories by nature cant be 100% proven. Even gravity cant. However, empirical (experimental) evidence is stronger than just mentally theorizing. In this case, they've made robotic imitations to experiment with. These robots are based partially off the real fossils (size, shape, ect), but also drawing parallels to modern animals (not just through shape, but skeletal structure and density, ligament attachement sites, ect.) Yes, some assuptions are made, but they're fairly safe since the scientists are looking for general trends rather than exact numerical data. In the case of the raptor claw, they didnt want to see the claw's holding strength or how long of a gash a raptor could rip. They wanted to see if a raptor's claw is generally used to hold or grip, and their experimental data has a reasonably high level of accuracy to say that raptors most likely clung rather than ripped. It's not precise quantitative data, but reasonably acceptable qualitative data used to draw trends in conclusions.

Of course, new information could always come about to prove this wrong. But I see science more as a constant revision than constantly changing. Take the atom. We knew they were small building blocks of matter. Then we realized they're not big spheres but mainly empty space. That doesnt mean that the original assumption that matter is made of small building blocks was wrong, they just revised the theory of the content of the building block. Then we found out electrons dont circulate in fixed orbits, but have uncertain position in general shaped orbitals. But electrons still revolve around the nucleus, just not in set paths. Then we found out the nucleus isnt a big bundle of positive charge, but small chunks of positive and neutral charge, protons and neutrons. The nucleus is still a big bundle of positive charge, just made up of smaller charges.

So, long story short, its not a complete rejection of theories as much as a revision of previous theories to make them more precise in detail with the inclusion of new data only obtainable using advances in science technology. It's all progress forwards.

Well, my respect for paleontologists now officially goes down the toilet... <_<

Oh yeah.
I second that.D<

Thing is I like Paleontology. Just I hate it when people screw up and and make the wrong assumptions and completely turn what we know of it inside out.

Blame the scientists who came before. Or dont. They were only making the best inferences they could with the data they had. Data always increases as new things are discovered and new technology makes it possible to do what wasnt doable before. In this case, more discovered skeletons and new robotics.

And besides, its not much different than it was before. The only big change is that raptors cling rather than gut. And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Their claw doesnt have a sharp inner edge, and trying to gut anything with your toes is really hard. Try it.

Ok, you can blame one guy. The guy who confused a crab for a spider. Easy to do. A horseshoe crab is actually more like a spider than a crab, so it swings both ways.