Dr. Bob here
and my faithful companion Piglet.
And today we're going to talk about and
look at the vertebrate fauna
from the Amole Arkose. And so far the vertebrate fauna consists of a
number of
rather nice fossil fishes and one
dinosaur.
What we're going to look at today is
that one dinosaur. Excuse me Piglet.
Here we see some of the remains of
that dinosaur. What we're looking at
right now is what technically we might
call
a knee. So on my right side
we have the distal or distant part of
the femur
this bone here right here. And on my left
side right here we have the proximal or
near side
of the tibia and fibia. So these two go
together. I try to get them in an anatomical
position but they're very very heavy and
not very stable,
and so i thought it was wisest just to
give up.
So it's a knee and looking in detail
at the femur we see it has a groove back
here
where the flexor muscle that bends the leg goes.
In the front we have a tunnel
or a totally enclosed groove if you will
where the extensor or the
muscle and tendon that straightens the
leg goes
and when it's totally enclosed like here
when the bone comes around
and closes it off i sometimes it's
called a
closed groove you might think of as a
tunnel that's a characteristic of a
Hadrosaur
or a duckbill dinosaur. So
not every duckbill dinosaur has that but
it seems to be unique to the Hadrosaurs
so we say with some confidence that it
is
a Hadrosaur and looking at just the
size
it's a bigger than average Hadrosaur
and so that is what is known
dinosaur-wise from the Amole Arkose.
So for me and Piglet today thank you and
have a great day!
