Pleurokinetic Mastication Model

Animation I created for part of my Master's thesis. I had each of the 23 disarticulated bones of the skull individually laser surface scanned, and then virtually reassembled the skull and animated it to test/visualize this theory of how different bones in the skull moved while the dinosaur was chewing.

• Category

  Science & Technology

[hallam25]

Actually, work by Dr. David B. Weishampel, recognized authority and expert on evolutionary biomechanics and hadrosauroid mastication supports this model. Perhaps you should do your research...

[Alex Tirabasso]

Also Dont forget this one by Rybczynski et al. in 2006!

[Alex Tirabasso]

Dont forget this one by Rybczynski et al. in 2006!

[Andrew Thomas]

Was this ever published?

[Arran Lewis]

Lovely animation, great to see. Thanks for sharing

[hallam25]

Thanks -- actually in the published thesis, Holliday, Witmer, Rybczynski, Ostom and Heaton are all referenced. This model however was developed to propose an alternate theory for the unique tooth wear patterns, based on work by Weishampel and Fastovsky... and Cuthbertson. :)

[hallam25]

When this specimen was discovered the bones of the palate were missing. Yes, we could have recreated the palate by referencing other hadrosauroid skulls to model a replacement palate, but for the scope (and time restraints) of this study, that simply was not feasible. I realize that this model is still controversial in some arenas and challenged by theories of simple forward-back motion of the dentary bones etc, but I'd recommend reading work by Weishampel as well. Thanks for your comments.

[hallam25]

Actually, work by Dr. David B. Weishampel, recognized authority and expert on evolutionary biomechanics and hadrosauroid mastication supports this model. Perhaps you should do your research...

[stycotl]

this must have taken forever, dave. good job. very well done.

aaron out.