Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Tyrannosaur growth rates

Oh joyous day, somebody has actually published on Tyrannosaur growth rates! They included T. rex, Daspletosaurus, Albertosaurus and Gorgosaurus. I kind of wish that they had published on Nanotyrannus and Tarbosaurus as well, but them's the breaks. Much of the research was based on Tyrrell material and this gives me the ideal opportunety to springboard my research on brain body size relationships within that group. I think that the first thing I need to do is actually measure the size of the endocasts of the various specimens (I think that I'll use liquid latex). From there, I'll find out how much each weighed and calculate the strength of the skulls of each. I think that with their methods I could also do this for Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, dromaeosaurs, oviraptorosaurs, ornithomimids and any other group of theropods. Using the fibula (one of the only non hollow bones in a theropod) is brilliant! However, I din't see them use any comparison to modern bird fibulas to test whether or not they were acurate. Oh, that'd make another really good project! I have way, way too many projects that I need to do. Hopefully without a TV this year, I'll be able to accomplish a few of them. That in itself would be a good experiment to see if its the bad influence of TV or my own lack of a strong work ethic (and funding and specimens) that has kept me from completing any projects.

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