How would dromaeosaurs use their claw? Is it similar to cassowaries where they just jump and kick? Is the sickle shape effective enough to disembowel prey?
>>4466311both?animals use organs for EVERY POSSIBLE USEIncluding several uses you didn't list
post more bird and dino feet
>>4466311Probably like the red legged seriema that has the same type of toe clawhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiU59Xv2aYc
>>4466311as you know the only proven use is digging the sickle into the external carotid of protoceratopsbut in real life they probably used the sickle for disembowling, cutting throats, climbing prey, and exsanguination. Also pinning and maybe digging.
>>4466311It’s sickle shaped, designed for grappling and not exactly for slicing. Most of the damage dealt to the prey are done by the teeth and jaws, while the sickle claws are there to latch onto large prey or to grapple and pin small prey on the ground. For arboreal species like Deinonychus, it’s also used to anchor itself in place when climbing trees.That said, cats also use their claws primarily for climbing and grappling, but that doesn’t mean it can’t attack with its claws.
>>4466320>arboreal species like Deinonychushmm
>>4466320>arboreal species like Deinonychus>>4466323that gets into paleobotanydid branching trees exist then?
>>4466317Thanks for the input but it doesn't show it using its claw, just bashing it against a rock
>>4466326>did branching trees exist then?Yeah there were quite a lot, including things similar to beech or oak trees that wouldn’t look out of place in a park
>>4466576Maybe everyone has it wrong and dinosaurs just bashed shit into rocks like the bird. Maybe the claw is just for scratching its balls or picking its teeth or some shit.
>>4466311>Is the sickle shape effective enough to disembowel prey?No.Its actual use (which very likely varied between species; a small tree-dweller would use it differently from a giant plains resident) is debatable, but we know that it was awful at cutting flesh. Piercing okay, but cutting, forget it.
>>4466311Remember back when cassowaries had not any gay feathers and were viewed as murderous kicking natives?Diogenes remembers!
>>4466598>including things similar to beech or oak treesHaha. No.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fagales#Evolutionary_historyThe oldest member of the order is the flower Soepadmoa cupulata preserved in the late Turonian-Coniacianhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeinonychusTemporal range: Early Cretaceous (Aptian to Albian)
>>4466311who wins in a fight, millions of years of evolution or a homemade plastic shield?
>>4466654>plastic shield made out of dead dinosaurs tempered by millions of years of forging into the fiery heart of the earthHow can cassuwals even compete?
>>4466606You are aware that OP posted an extant dinosaur that is proven to disemboweled large mammals with a single kick specifically to counter your milquetoast redditard science^TMfan "well akthsully" "muh normal animals not muhnsters" halfwit deboonking, right?
>>4466311If only someone could find a fossil of a dromaeosaur that died in the act of using its claws to kill prey,then these great mysteries might be answered!
>>4466576He’s making sparks to start fire so he can begin metalwork to begin making a combustible engine
>>4466815Calling Poe's Law here.
>>4466662Not that anon but can you post link to proof? All I can find is gay chickens that probably just hopped around flashing presumably colorful wing feathers in an attempt to get laid. The claw might just be for subsequent sexy time.
>>4467118>I know this is nuchan but holy fucking shit, dude.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary#Attacks
>>4466662A lot of normal animals are monsters though.
>>4467133That's the point.
>>4467130But cassowaries don't have first toe sickle claws? They're totally different animals. I still think the curved claws were just used for rape.
>>4467158Dromeosaurs had varying degrees of claw curvature. Utahraptor's for example wasn't significantly straighter than cassowaries' and was proportionally too small to serve any tree climbing or pray straining purpose
>>4467130>Cassowary strikes to the abdomen are among the rarest of all, but in one case, a dog was kicked in the belly in 1995. The blow left no puncture, but severe bruising occurred. The dog later died from an apparent intestinal rupture.[46]>disembowelingI knew you were retarded, but the sheer magnitude of your retardation still leaves me in awe
>>4467078that was sarcasticismwe have a fossil of a dromaeosaurid killing its prey with its claws.
>>4466662Based post
>>4467194Older literature mentioned said the incident as "disembowelment". Also nice cherry picking when the other two recorded incidents clearly demonstrate that its talons can penetrate flesh.
>>4467233Link?
>>4467344https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Dinosaurs
>>4467344>>4467499It's hard to tell from pics, but the raptor has one arm caught in the mouth of the Protoceratops. the other hand claws are behind the frill in the neck, close to the external carotid artery, jugular vein, and tracheaOne foot is located by the prey's flank or belly, the other under the belly or perineum. all of these areas are commonly targeted by modern predators when killing prey, and wounding any of them can be lethal. Interestingly the raptor was on its side. I imagine it like a housecat that fights on its side or back, using its hands to hold its victim while it claws swiftly and repeatedly with its feet. Raptors were pretty light in weight, the only way for them to cut an animal open with the foot claws would probably be to hold it and kick, or brace themselves against the ground while kicking. The hand claws were apparently mobile and sharp enough to puncture the throat of prey, likely also delivering deadly wounds to the neck.
>>4467344>>4467499>>4467512probably the most interesting thing is that while all 4 limbs of the raptor were engaged in attacking the prey, the mouth apparently wasn't. Despite the mouth probably being a formidable weapon, the raptor appears to just be using its hands and feet while keeping the head well away from any attacks by Protoceratops. This could be attributed to movement or contraction of the neck after death (classic raptor death pose) but the way the animals were buried so fast they're caught in combat indicates the bodies didn't move after death. The raptor very likely appears exactly as it did while attempting to kill the Protoceratops. It apparently wasn't biting the animal. Rather it did the opposite and held its head well out of the way of combat.
>>4467515this isn't surprising in that most predators will protect their faces from struggling prey as much as possible. But it is a bit weird for our ideas about theropods, which often couldn't use their arms at all, probably couldn't hunt with their feet, and pretty much had to attack with their faces.raptors were a clear exception, using hands and feet to attack prey, rather than their mouths as larger theropods must have done.
>>4467344>>4467499It's easy to imagine the raptor doing a bunny kick like a cat to disembowel prey or simply shred it and let it die of exsanguination.
I think it's important to note that the sickle claw is always up, preventing it from being worn down by touching the ground. Like some modern predators that keep their claws sheathed, it needs to stay sharp. As for how effective it is for disemboweling... well I would say it depends on the size of the dromaeosaur and the prey. A giant Utahraptor kicking you with its sickle claw can't be good either way.
>>4467575>I think it's important to note that the sickle claw is always up, preventing it from being worn down by touching the ground.since the keratinous claw isn't preserved, and should be longer than the bone of the ungual, this is a mistake in thinking.It's possible, maybe even likely, that the claw was twice as long or longer in life, reaching the ground even when the bone of the toe is held up.basically, what we see isn't the claw. The claw isn't preserved. What we see is the bone of the ungual. The actual claw is unknown, and probably a lot longer than the bone we have.
>>4467575>>4467617This also means since we don't have the actual claws preserved, they may very well have been much sharper than the bones of the unguals. In most animals with keratinous claws sheathing ungual bones, they're both longer and sharper than the bones underneath.
>>4467618When the public looks at a raptorial "claw" they see it as large, sharp, and perhaps frightening.zoologists and paleontologists look at that same bone and realize the claw is actually missing. The claw was in fact probably much larger and sharper than the bones we see.
>>4467575
>>4467620This got me curious, because I assume most paleoart/reconstruction already takes this into account. Even if the sickle claw is longer than we thought, it's still held up and isn't used for walking right?
>>4469466No, several respected paleontologists have said the claws were held off the ground to keep them sharp so artists usually take that view and run with it. With all due respect to those paleontologists, they don't seem to know their claw anatomy very well.In real life keratinous claws usually grow constantly, so the claws likely varied in length on different animals and often curved to the ground.Also terrestrial animals and even birds to some extent usually keep their claws short and sharp by wearing them on the ground and other stuff. So even if the claws were held up, they should grow down long enough to touch the ground or other surfaces.
>>4469466>>4469479I should probably add-it wasn't a strict one or the other behavior. The toe is obviously able to lift the claw off the ground or press it down to the ground. And the animals certainly did both. How often they walked with the raptorial claw down on the ground is impossible to know, but it certainly happened, just as they also undoubtedly walked with the toe up sometimes. It would've depended on how much traction they needed, and how slippery or steep the surface they were walking on was.the alternative is that they only flexed the toe when killing prey, but then they'd have needed to use a scratching post or something similar to keep the claw short and sharp. It's easier to just let it hit the ground at least some of the time. Walking will wear a claw better than specific scratching behaviors.
>>4469488alternatives to walking and scratching would be nail chewing behavior or climbing trees or something with the claw.again, those would work, and most clawed animals seem to climb stuff and chew on their claws if they get too long. So those probably happened as well. But again the easiest way to keep the claws in fighting condition is just to walk on them at least some of the time.
>>4469479>>4469488>>4469496tl;dr: It's a fun idea that they kept their claws off the ground so they'd stay sharp, but the idea is ruined by the fact that claws grow constantly and would just grow to reach the ground if they did hold them up all the time.
>>4469466of course if they weren't using the range of motion on the toe just to keep the toe off the ground, we'd have to wonder what it was actually for.Jurassic Park kinda ruined it by painting this picture of dromaeosaurs delivering killing kicks to the gut from a distance and without touching you. Some sort of cassowary kick.in real life they probably grabbed their prey with their hands, hiked the leg up to their chest, dug the toe claw into the animal, and then kicked downward extending both the leg and toe. This works a lot better for disemboweling an animal when you're a fairly small predator that weighs almost nothing. And it explains the range of motion of the toe. Changing the angle of the claw as you ripped it downward would aid in cutting flesh.
>>4469501the JP raptors in real life wouldn't stand 5 feet away and kick your guts out. They'd be more likely to hug you, dig their hand claws in, possibly bite into you to add stability and then repeatedly kick you with the toe claw, shredding you.
>>4469507Also of course disembowelment or death isn't necessarily a goal of predators that attack the flanks or perineum of a prey item.disembowelments and death can certainly happen, but the actual goal is just to down the animal via shock or blood loss so the predator can commence eating it. Whether it's dead or not doesn't matter. Whether it's disemboweled or not doesn't matter.
>>4469513Predators often eat prey while it's still alive.and they'll usually start by eating the guts and internal organs. there's no reason to think dromaeosaurs were any different in that respect. If the prey wasn't disemboweled in the initial attack, it would've been shortly after.
>>4467519think you might enjoy this:https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1sto14
>>4469514This assumes the predator wasn't just using the raptorial claw to catch fish or pin down tiny mammals.but the fighting dinos fossil pretty well proves that even some of the smallest of dromaeosaurs were killing prey much bigger than fish or mammals.
>>4469518Thank you, I've watched it a few times. I do very much like it.
>>4469518I particularly liked the biomechanical model of the raptor claw and foot.the one criticism I'd have is that the underside of the ungual isn't sharp, so they didn't make the underside of the claw sharp.this is possibly a mistake for the same reason the length of the claw may be wrong. We've never found the actual claw itself, only the bone. And just because the bone isn't sharp on the underside doesn't mean the claw wasn't.
>>4469529also how deep the claw goes into the meat affects how it cuts. The tip of the claw is a much better cutting surface than the base. We see this in cats and bears, which both lack cutting edges on the underside of the claw but still manage to disembowel and shred animals easily enough.
>>4469530basically they used a Jurassic Park style angle of attack. If they instead tried it at a steeper angle they might have gotten better slashing from their model instead of just a puncture and stop.
>>4469532I don't know why you keep bringing up Jurassic Park. As far as I know this is the only time they showed the claw being used in the franchise. Otherwise the raptors just glomp on you and chew, it's all very PG-13
>>4469599watch it with your eyes closed, you'll get it.
>>4466311probably to hold prey down and rip at itsuch a strong curve makes them less than optimal for slashing or stabbing, a curve like that is more like a tiger claw, which is meant for prey handling and pinning down so the teeth can do the work
>>4469840>probably to hold prey down and bite at itfixed
>>4469840>have actual fossil of a raptor using the claw>everyone ignores it
I don't think it would take as much for them to kill their prey as say modern eagles/hawks and those can take down deer in the right circumstances. I assume their prey is probably things smaller than them rather than like a pack of wolves taking down a buffalo. They run up on something kick into them with the bottoms of their feet talking about broken ribs and bones probably toppled they grab it by the neck or body and whip it around and bash it about like modern birds do with reptiles and rodents. The claw itself seems unnecessary for anything but a dismemberment tool for feeding it's young or just gripping the body while it pulls parts off.
>>4469879>>have actual fossil of a raptor using the claw>>everyone ignores it
>>4469882I think you should just be happy this many people believe in dinosaurs at all on this board.
>>4469935there's only 3 regulars on this board, and one of them believes in dinosaurs or doesn't depending on whether he took his meds that day
>>4466311everyone is wrong.It existed as a sexual display. It showed that the animal was healthy enough to walk on just two fingers and waste a third finger on a useless huge nail.they also used it to tap on rocks and wood to make sounds during courtship rituals
>>4466654that plastic shield is also the result of millions of years of evolution
>>4469882we don't know what it was using the claw for.stabbing? slashing? Something else?even rabbits kick while fighting, and they have no slasher claw. It may even have been desperately kicking at the other animal because it had been downed.
>>4470088>Protoceratops catching itself a Velociraptor to eatthis is my favorite cope
>>4470109velociraptor attacking a protoceraptor, then protoceraptor turns the table around and the velociraptor has to defend itself desperately.But I bet you understood that already and were just acting dumb
>>4469599Johnston's direction is so good. Pity the script was nonexistent.
>>4470910once the arm was locked up, it couldn't change positionmeaning that was the position he was in when protoceratops grabbed him.it's an interesting position. Exactly what we'd expect if velociraptor used its toe claws to rip the belly of prey.
Everyone in this thread is wrongTheir feet were likely able to form a similar "fist" to some modern birds of prey. (Picrel is of Deinonychus' foot and flexing)So they used their fists to punch and mog pleb dinosoys.
>>4471272trueif a thing can be done, someone will have done it.
>>4466605Did dinosaurs have external balls? Anyway, I guarantee you that the sickle was regularly used to scratch dinosaur cloaca.
>>4466660>cassuwalslmao
>>4467512>>4467515>>4467519I might be overestimating the logical capabilities of a raptor but using your face to attack the giant armoured pincer that's currently in the process of removing your arm seems like a dangerous idea.
