Experiments with dead chickens: The secret to the dinosaur death pose

[Doctor Mud]

Yes- you read it right!

Couldn't find a post on this.....

 

I was exploring for something about postmortem positions of dead crabs.... you know a typical Wednesday evening.

 

I found this:

 

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/laelaps/the-secret-of-the-dinosaur-death-pose/

 

Paleontologists have been debating the cause of the dinosaur death pose for over a century now. There are two schools of thought on the subject. Some researchers have proposed that the contortion – technically called the opisthotonic posture – is caused at the time of death by poisoning, lack of oxygen to the brain, or similar circumstances that cause neck and tail to spasm into weird angles. Other paleontologists have suggested that the pose happens after death, with immersion in water or decay tensing muscles and ligaments that pull the head back and the tail up. It could be a perimortem or postmortem pose.

 

 

Chickens, like all birds, are dinosaurs, and they have the advantage of being readily available at the supermarket. So after thawing out their frozen birds, Russell and Bentley (2015) placed the birds in different opisthotonic positions starting at rest and moving the neck back until it mimicked what’s seen in fossil dinosaurs like the Struthiomimus on display at the American Museum of Natural History. They also checked to see if the birds’ heads could be flexed forward, beneath the body, and the researchers used the X-rays from both sets of trials to see how neck vertebrae angles changed with each position.

 

 

Chickens in varying degrees of opisthotonic posture. Credit: Russell and Bentley 2015

 

 

Russell, A., Bently, A. 2015. Opisthotonic head displacement in the domestic chicken and its bearing on the ‘dead bird’ posture of non-avialan dinosaurs. Journal of Zoology. doi: 10.1111/jzo.12287
 

[doushantuo]

Rusl_ophistavesgallidtaphndinosaewal-2016-JZoogy.pdf

[Doctor Mud]

9 minutes ago, doushantuo said:

Rusl_ophistavesgallidtaphndinosaewal-2016-JZoogy.pdf

Thanks for posting the paper Doushantuo!

ill have to read it after reading about dead crabs.

[doushantuo]

I did no such thing.

The "W*ley paywall crew" might come around,with their chains and brass knuckles.

You can clearly see I did post not the article in question ,because the titles don't look very similar

more on necks  

[doushantuo]

fair enough

[Doctor Mud]

4 minutes ago, doushantuo said:

I did no such thing.

The "W*ley paywall crew" might come around,with their chains and brass knuckles.

You can clearly see I did post not the article in question ,because the titles don't look very similar

more on necks  

Wink wink nudge nudge, say no more 

 

Methods:

"We purchased 15 whole, plucked frozen Silkie chickens from a local grocery store. After thawing, five were used to establish appropriate positioning and effective radiographic exposure parameters, and the remaining 10 were used for data gathering. "

 

" data gathering"

On the tastiest recipes for fried chicken?

 

[doushantuo]

our senses of humour converge,I feel.

The minute i saw your post on "farmhand taphonomy"...

Pectinate_clawsn_decapcrustaceansjop_Convergence.pdf

 

[doushantuo]

cheliped tapho

 

brachyura(Plotnick et al,1988):

1-s2.0-0031018288900892-main.pdf