A few months ago I wrote a quick piece about a potentially venomous dinosaur. I said I would read the paper but didn't get access to it till I was too busy to get around to it. Anyway I wanted it to be true but a new paper (Gianechini et al., 2010) seems to show that Sinornithosaurus probably was not in fact venomous. The authors did have a chance to respond (Gong et al., 2010) but it is questionable on if they have met their burden of proof. Now I haven't read the papers and the way things are going with the papers I need to read I won't reach that want to pile until much later. Anyway Brian Switek over at Dinosaur Tracking has a pretty good write up on both papers and I am sure he has read them so go read his review.
Gianechini, F., Agnolín, F., & Ezcurra, M. (2010). A reassessment of the purported venom delivery system of the bird-like raptor Sinornithosaurus Paläontologische Zeitschrift DOI: 10.1007/s12542-010-0074-9
Gong, E., Martin, L., Burnham, D., & Falk, A. (2010). Evidence for a venomous Sinornithosaurus Paläontologische Zeitschrift DOI: 10.1007/s12542-010-0076-7
A New Placodont from the Late Triassic of China
5 years ago
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