Originally posted by mattison0922
[Totally off topic, but pit bulls DO NOT have 'lock jaw.' I've owned pit bulls for decades now, and this is totally not true. A pit bull skull, while perhaps thicker, and bigger than that of an 'average' dog, contains no mechanism not present in other dogs that would permit their jaws to lock.

We had one for a few years [she was about 35KL] ..we cared for her brother while her owners were on holidays for a few days. Of course.. someone stupidly decided to give them treats without seperating them. Scary as it was it was.. educational. I think what happens is because of the amount and density of the muscles, when they are flooded with adrenaline they become tense and 'clamp' alot easier seeming to lock. I do not think the jaw itself gets stuck.

Originally posted by sdunklee72520
and wonder how intellegent some of the other dino's could have been with brains walnut sized and larger

The smartest known dinosaur was clearly Troodon. A small bipedal 5ft tall 100lb dinosaur with big eyes and a opposable finger. Most dinosaur brains didnt fill their brain case, troodon brain was so large it left impressions on the inside of its skull. 6 times larger then most dinosaurs about the size of a tennis-ball and the largest brain to body ratio of any dinosaur.

It was actually smarter then our mammal ancestors at the time and more human like then the shrew like mammals. If dinosaurs didnt die out it was most likley Troodons ancestors would go on to inherit the earth and not mammals.

Most people think its intelligence was akin to a coyote today.

But theres alot of dinosaurs left to be discovered so their could have been smarter ones.

To the whole T-rex debate, I always thought the arms were useless and the fossils we found were just an inbetween stage from a smaller and longer armed t-rex and it's would be ancestor being big and totally armless. It is already speculated that the T-rex used it legs for most of it's armwork, and used it's tail for balance. I doubt the arms would've been used for much other than the occasional itching... hardly life threatening. Given a few million years of evolution and the arms probably would've disappeared.

To the whole intelligent dinosaurs, I've always fantasized about intelligent dinosaurs. If you believe the whole reptilian thing, one theory is that they descended from dinosaurs on earth and now live underground (not the best place for lizards.. but oh well). There was a series my grandpa introduced me to awhile back called West of Eden about intelligent dinosaurs. A sort of "What if the comet/whatever caused the great extinction, never happened" type scenario, where native americans were the only humans, and a Columbus type dinosaur expedition lands in america. The dinosaurs were very advanced, and instead of developing electricity and industry as humans did, instead learned how to breed animals and genetically engineer their technology. From living submarines to animals that acted as microscopes, it was some pretty interesting stuff.