STL Science Center

STL Science Center

10 July 2013

Toes in Sand

The toes of Juravenator are dinosaur toes for certain. Are they adapted to a life on a coastal shore and treading in the sand and mud? We cannot tell for certain because we do not have clear imprints of the integument surrounding those toes. The claws at the ends of the toes, however, are not exactly beachwear that would facilitate long walks or even short jaunts and sprints. The tail is where the feather/scale argument is centered. The integument traces preserved here indicate scale presence as well as the presence of some protofeather-like traces. The overall indications of the posterior half of the body of Juravenator indicate that it was not extremely well adapted to a sandy shore and that it was at the basal end of the feather scale if it indeed possessed any true feathering. Due to the lower adaptivity to the sand it probably visited the sand, but did not spend the majority of its time exactly at the shoreline.

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