How would dromaeosaurs use their claw? Is it similar to cassowaries where they just jump and kick?

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?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Everyone in this thread is wrong

    Their 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.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      true

      if a thing can be done, someone will have done it.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    everyone 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

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    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.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >>have actual fossil of a raptor using the claw
      ignores it

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I think you should just be happy this many people believe in dinosaurs at all on this board.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          there'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

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        we 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.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Protoceratops catching itself a Velociraptor to eat
          this is my favorite cope

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            velociraptor 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

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              once the arm was locked up, it couldn't change position

              meaning 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.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    probably to hold prey down and rip at it
    such 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

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >probably to hold prey down and bite at it
      fixed

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >have actual fossil of a raptor using the claw
      >everyone ignores it

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    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.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >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.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >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.

      This 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.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        When 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.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          This 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?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            No, 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.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              [...]
              I 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.

              alternatives 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.

              tl;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.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            No, 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.

            I 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.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              alternatives 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.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            of 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.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              the 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.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Also 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.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Predators 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.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                This 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.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous
  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If 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!

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Calling Poe's Law here.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        that was sarcasticism

        we have a fossil of a dromaeosaurid killing its prey with its claws.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Link?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Dinosaurs

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            https://i.imgur.com/HNHcPrP.jpg

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Dinosaurs

            It'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 trachea

            One 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.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              [...]
              [...]
              probably 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.

              this 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.

              I 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.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            https://i.imgur.com/HNHcPrP.jpg

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Dinosaurs

            [...]
            It'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 trachea

            One 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.

            probably 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.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              this 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.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                think you might enjoy this:

                https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1sto14

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Thank you, I've watched it a few times. I do very much like it.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                I 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.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                also 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.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                basically 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.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                I 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

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                watch it with your eyes closed, you'll get it.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Johnston's direction is so good. Pity the script was nonexistent.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            https://i.imgur.com/HNHcPrP.jpg

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Dinosaurs

            It'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.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    who wins in a fight, millions of years of evolution or a homemade plastic shield?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >plastic shield made out of dead dinosaurs tempered by millions of years of forging into the fiery heart of the earth
      How can cassuwals even compete?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      that plastic shield is also the result of millions of years of evolution

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Remember back when cassowaries had not any gay feathers and were viewed as murderous kicking natives?

    Diogenes remembers!

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >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.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      You 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?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Not 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.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >I know this is nuchan but holy fricking shit, dude.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary#Attacks

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            But cassowaries don't have first toe sickle claws? They're totally different animals. I still think the curved claws were just used for rape.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Dromeosaurs 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

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >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]
            >disemboweling
            I knew you were moronic, but the sheer magnitude of your moronation still leaves me in awe

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Older 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.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        A lot of normal animals are monsters though.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          That's the point.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It’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.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >arboreal species like Deinonychus
      hmm

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >arboreal species like Deinonychus

      >arboreal species like Deinonychus
      hmm

      that gets into paleobotany

      did branching trees exist then?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >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

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >including things similar to beech or oak trees
          Haha. No.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/gayales#Evolutionary_history
          The oldest member of the order is the flower Soepadmoa cupulata preserved in the late Turonian-Coniacian

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinonychus
          Temporal range: Early Cretaceous (Aptian to Albian)

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    as you know the only proven use is digging the sickle into the external carotid of protoceratops

    but in real life they probably used the sickle for disembowling, cutting throats, climbing prey, and exsanguination. Also pinning and maybe digging.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Probably like the red legged seriema that has the same type of toe claw

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Thanks for the input but it doesn't show it using its claw, just bashing it against a rock

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Maybe 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.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Did dinosaurs have external balls? Anyway, I guarantee you that the sickle was regularly used to scratch dinosaur cloaca.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        He’s making sparks to start fire so he can begin metalwork to begin making a combustible engine

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    post more bird and dino feet

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    both?

    animals use organs for EVERY POSSIBLE USE

    Including several uses you didn't list

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