Well said.

Obviously some people here do not understand what costitutes "lips". What I refer to are the scale-covered structures that allow a tight mouth seal, and protect the mouth tissue from drying out, as we see in the living lizards, some, like the varanids, had almost identical type flat serrated teeth of the theropod dinosaurs.

These are the "lips" I am referring to, and like the dinosaur fossils, these modern reptiles have holes in the jaws to bring blood vessels to support these tissues. This is why no serious paleontologist can doubt these same "lip" structures on theropod dinosaurs.

I never said dinosaurs had the soft fleshy lips of mammals, they have the lips, teeths, and other mouth structures very similar to those of a Komodo Dragon, as everything in the fossil record supports even if dinos are called Archosaurs. This is called convergent evolution.

You cannot be sure, as dinosaurs show no parallel evolution to modern reptiles. The blood vessels could be a way of cooling off, like how crocs do.


There was an article somewhere in this thread about why large theropods probably lacked lips.

Other dinosaurs did not have lips, so it was also probable theropods did not have any lips either...No parallel evolution to modern lizards

While I share your opinion on the presence of theropod lips, I think once again you overstate your case. As I have already pointed out, the subject is in fact very much debatable. The simple fact of the matter is that dinosaur lips are not a very high-priority subject for research. Very little serious work has been done in this area, and no one can honestly say that they know with absolute certainty what the truth is.

-Pilgrim

I call Bull ----! Forgfish you know as much about dinosaurs as my FOOT knows about the lock ness monster! Please tell us all why an animal that has no lips needs to cool its mouth like that wen it mouth can be cooled by the air around it. Or with it owen saliva (spit).

Wow, your foot must know A LOT about the loch ness monster...Don't be so jealous.



Ahhh, not just its mouth, but its WHOLE BODY. Like the years of a jack-rabbit. They help thermoregulate its body temperature. Crocs use their mouths to regulate temperature while spitting excess salts. Why not a dinosaur?

P.S. I think I know more about dinosaurs than you, DC, AND your foot....just a thought.

First off there is evidence that says that dinosaurs, or at list the meet eating thourpodes, were worm blood.

second off you said be for that "you" dent think dinosaurs and modern reptiles have anything incomin.

And there is just as much...EVEN MORE evidence that dinosaurs were cold-blooded


Dinosaurs and modern reptiles (except for crocodillians) are very different. No parallel and convergent evolution took place.

If they were cold blooded then how did thourpodes evol. in to birds

There is indeed evidence that dinosaurs were warm-blooded. There is also evidence that they were cold blooded. The debate is far from over.

Currently, there are 5 theories which are generally held to be the top contenders:

1) Dinosaurs were fully warm-blooded like birds.

2) Dinosaurs were neither fully warm- nor cold-blooded, but rather were somewhere in between, able to regulate their internal temperature somewhat yet still dependant upon their environment for warmth.

3) Dinosaurs were cold-blooded but were able to maintain a constant internal temperature through their sheer size.

4) Dinosaurs were fully cold-blooded but enjoyed a very warm climate.

5) We know too little about dinosaur metabolism to guess.

Currently, theories 1 and 2 seem to be prevailing, however, this issue is far from settled and will likely remain in question for many years.

-Pilgrim

lets look at it like this we know evolution liks to repteat itself right like the emrald tree boa and the green tree python come from completly diffrent sides of the world but evoleved to be almost identical except for size one is a liitle bigger i forget which one. now if u think aobut i look at plant eating lizards they have lips look at iguanas and thne look at turtles and we know some had beaks now look at meat eating reptiles like the komodo dragon it has lips now look at the crocs they dont i think its a fair assesment that some had lips others beaks and some neither and lived withere there teeth chillin uncovered.

The blood changed from "cold" to "warm". Remeber, every land animal evolved from amphibians and reptiles at one point. Mammals evolved from the reptilian synapsids and diapsids.

For the dinosaurs that most likely has lips were grazers, presumably the sauropods. They probably also had a prehensile tongue like giraffes.

Good point.

there not one single piece of evidence that anything evolved into anything. Noboy knows what the dinosaurs looked like...so its more of an opinion.

That has to be one of the most unintelligent remarks I have ever heard. I guess you are a creationist? Come out of Plato's Cave-learn. It has been proven that mammals evolved from synapsids

Here are some links:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/synapsids/synapsida.html
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/synapsids/pelycosaurs.html
http://tolweb.org/Synapsida
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synapsid

Paleontologists DO know how 95% of all discoverd dinosaurs look like. Maybe not color, but definitely looks. We even have discovered fossilized skin imprints and feather imprints on many dinosaurs!

Indeed. Furthermore, the bones tell us much about the dinosaur's build. We can see where muscles attached and how powerful those muscles were.

Our image of dinosaurs may not be perfect but it is far from a shot in the dark.

As for the proof for evolution, evolution is a theory and cannot be absolutely, definitively proven. However, as theories go, it is probably the most rock-solid theory in all of science. The evidence in favor of it is so incredibly vast that we could not even begin to touch on it here. Suffice to say, it is not a subject of scientific dispute. Scientists disagree about how it works and about what creatures are descended from which ancestors, but no one in the scientific community doubts that it did happen.

Also, we should remember that in science, the word theory takes on a slightly different meaning. When most people say "I have a theory," in scientific terms, they have a hypothesis. Only when that hypothesis has been tested extensively and proven over and over to be correct, and has been independently verified again and again, is it elevated to the status of theory. Thus, when we say evolution is a theory, it is akin to saying that we cannot prove it, but we are almost certain it is true.

Nothing in science can ever be known with absolute certainty, but evolution is about as close as a theory can get to that lofty goal.

-Pilgrim

WOW........................................................................