Dromaeosaurs are Terrestrial Hawks

Denver Fowler and colleagues have just published a series of papers dealing with the reconstruction of predatory behavior as indicated by the proportions, curvature, and anatomy of the pes in theropod dinosaurs. They began this study investigating birds, and the range of ecology and behavior exhibited by a variety of birds. Then they expanded this to that ever-curious group, dromaeosaurs. That is the topic of the current paper, by Denver Fowler, Elizabeth Freedman, John Scannella and Robert Kambic, who describe the pedal anatomy of Deinonychus antirrhopus in relation to its possible predatory capabilities, including the premises of previous authors who’ve inferred the foot was used in climbing (including up the sides of very, very large prey).

Making Lip of It

I’m more than a little interested in the “how you know” of paleontological reconstruction. As it may be apparent by now, I’m an artist, and as such tend to see things on an aesthetic level more than a technical one. Although I still see things technically, I look at them through aesthetic eyes. Because I’m a relativist, I try to put perspective on this by occasionally taking those glasses off, and look at something ONLY in a technical light, but this is hard: There are times when, regardless of the technical expertise of the work, I like its aesthetic, and this causes me to have issues on writing, where my tone and thoughts jumble together. It feels right, now you’re making me read it through like an editor?!

But art sometimes must take precedence, because in technical illustration, we have to be able to easily understand what we are seeing.

Southern Raptors II: Grooves, Cones, and Carinae

When dealing with incompletely preserved or incompletely prepared material, superficial statements are often used to describe a feature so that it can be “assessed” by the readers in some fashion. Take, for example, the following image:

Microraptor’s Hindwings – WP#2

Second in the series, following my previous entry. I will be posting these on Sunday of each week (simply because it’s convenient) so this will be posted only a few days after the previous installment. All other installments follow each seven days from now on.

Today’s installment deals with the infamous Microraptor, a dinosaur with two sets of wings, one on the conventional arms, and another apparently on the hindlegs.