Comments on: Sinornithosaurus Probably Wasn’t Venomous After All

By: Buck Teeth? Wait a Minute…. « The Bite Stuff

Buck Teeth? Wait a Minute…. « The Bite Stuff — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:51:18 +0000

[...] sets of authors on this issue, and have no opinion on the situation, which Brian Switek covered here, although it should be noted that in neither case did the authors demonstrate the extent of enamel, [...]

By: Ian Garofalo

Ian Garofalo — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:03:54 +0000

I never said you shouldn’t be cautious with BANDit papers, I just don’t think they should be dismissed outright simply because of that fact.

By: Zach Miller

Zach Miller — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:16:02 +0000

If a paper is written by BANDits, that’s certainly a big fat warning label to me. But I try to read it with an open mind.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:15:35 +0000

Probably one of those deceptively simple questions that turns out to be anything but: How long ago did venom first evolve among vertebrates? Do we even have a guess for that, or is it too difficult to determine form fossil evidence alone?

By: Ian Garofalo

Ian Garofalo — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 22:41:34 +0000

I wonder how many people dismissed the original paper simply because it was written by BANDits. I was never convinced by their “evidence” in the first place, but dismissing it based on their position alone would be too ad hominem for me.

By: Zach Miller

Zach Miller — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:21:53 +0000

I just love how even unprofessional enthusiasts like you, Brian, and myself, and professional paleontologists cried “fowl” when this paper was published. We all knew better, and I’ll bet the authors of the original paper did, too. I’m glad Gianechini et al. published a rebuke. There needs to be more of that–beating down the cranks, that is.

By: David Marjanović

David Marjanović — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:56:01 +0000

The very widespread grooves probably come from the fact that the tooth roots of archosaurs are hollow. Squeeze them (by putting a few hundred meters of rock on them and wait for well over 100 million years), and you get flat, grooved teeth. Hollow bones are often preserved this way, too.