Distinctive Dinosaur Death Throes [opisthotonos]

Discover ^ | Wednesday, January 9, 2008 | Richard Morgan

[SunkenCiv]

When the dinosaurs died out some 65 million years ago, many perished in the exact same iconic pose: neck, spine, and tail curved backward, mouth open, limbs contracted. The reason for this characteristic dino death pose has been unclear. Conventional wisdom held that the dead dinos' pose was struck when the muscles contracted under rigor mortis or because the dinos' tendons and ligaments had dried up, suggesting that their bodies had been exposed to the sun for a long time. But if so, why hadn't the bones been scattered by scavengers? ...Cynthia Marshall Faux [has] doctorates in veterinary medicine as well as geology (with a specialty in vertebrate paleontology). It was clear to Faux that the dinosaurs' pose was a sign of opisthotonos, a condition that results from an injury affecting the cerebellum, which regulates fine muscle movement... opisthotonos is usually seen in warm-blooded animals like birds and mammals but not reptiles.

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

Gosh, it's almost as if every dinosaur with opisthotonos died of the same cause. :')

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[SunkenCiv]

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[CholeraJoe]

Interesting. This is the most compelling evidence I’ve seen for warm-blooded dinos. I’ve seen it in humans due to low serum calcium. It’s also the same posture seen in certain types of brain injury prior to death.

[maryz]

but also advances the argument that these creatures may have had hot blood pumping through their veins.

!!! Hmmm. Hillary: I'm Grateful to Have a Passionate Husband???? Sorry . . . I couldn't help myself! ;-)

[colorado tanker]

Adding to the intrigue is that opisthotonos is usually seen in warm-blooded animals like birds and mammals but not reptiles. Faux’s paper on opisthotonos, published in March, rethinks dinosaurs not just as having died for reasons other than meteor impacts and volcanic eruptions but also advances the argument that these creatures may have had hot blood pumping through their veins.

Interesting.

[SunkenCiv]

Very. Unless they generally died by hitting their heads on low-hanging branches, or were very susceptible to strokes (fossil brain tumors have already been found in at least one dino), it appears to reinforce the view that there was a single, basically global cause for their disappearance.

[SunkenCiv]

;’)

[LiteKeeper]

Like inability to tread water for a year!

[SunkenCiv]

This is the most compelling evidence I've seen for warm-blooded dinos.

I grok that. Somewhere around here I've got a file regarding the various different therms; there are various different kinds of metabolic models, rather than just endothermic and exothermic.

[Question_Assumptions]

Very. Unless they generally died by hitting their heads on low-hanging branches, or were very susceptible to strokes (fossil brain tumors have already been found in at least one dino), it appears to reinforce the view that there was a single, basically global cause for their disappearance.

Consider the rise of a new disease or parasite to which the dinosaurs were particularly vulnerable. There are plenty of disease and parasite related ways to damage a brain, that might even explain why the damage was all so similar.

[SunkenCiv]

I’ll go with the model for which there is a preponderance of evidence (mass extinction due to impact).

[jonno]

you beat me to it!
8^)

[wildbill]

Drowning Wouldn’t account for the reaction and besides all those nasty huge sharks and other eaters would have gotten them.

No, I’m going for the theory that the Dinosaurs were proto-avian—and died of avian flu germs.

[colorado tanker]

I’ll go with the model for which there is a preponderance of evidence (mass extinction due to impact).

Well, it strikes me that a cataclysmic and radical alteration of the environment due to the impact is not inconsistent with some sort of resulting brain damage in the creatures killed.

[null and void]

Well, it strikes me that a cataclysmic and radical alteration of the environment due to the impact is not inconsistent with some sort of resulting brain damage in the creatures killed.

IIRC, lack of oxygen causes a similar posture in victims of near drowning.

A near global firestorm, followed by a couple months or years of darkness would surely drop oxygen levels. That would be consistent with both the impact and massive volcanism theories.

[null and void]

Or they could just be pining for the fjords...

The earliest feathered dinosaur, Archaeopteryx (plumage not shown). Drawn from specimen at Humboldt Museum, Berlin. The skull is about six inches long.

An ostrich-like dinosaur, Struthiomimus; in the classic posture indicative of brain damage and asphyxiation at death. Drawn from specimen at American Museum of Natural History. The skull is about a foot long.

[Fred Nerks]

Warm or cold blooded didn't matter; protoceratops was eating velociraptor for dinner, and

this fish didn't get a chance to swallow, that's how SUDDEN it was.

[null and void]

Poor little fishie. Imagine how much and how long he struggled as he choked to death on a meal that was just a little too large to swallow.

If only there had been someone to give him a Heimlich, he'd still be alive today...

[Does so]

These fossils didn't ALL die at the same moment, in the same position, of the same cause, or even in the same Era. A form of rigor mortis is credited with the pose.

I'll apply Occam's Razor to say that the heaviest part of the body was stuck on the bottom of a moving water source with the head trailing behind—thereafter the body was buried by mud eventually—protected from scavengers. (Assuring the complete fossils that demonstrate the pose so well.)

How'd I do?

:-)