Hi

I was drawing one day and a questing pop into my head. Did dinosuars have lipes? I would think they would so that ther teeth don't dry out. The only reptiles that dont have lipes (that I know of) are reptiles in the croc famile.

hey, nifty and original thread i must say...but i think you mean lips...anywho

What are lipes?

yeah, like i said, they mean lips.

sorry I have a hard time with spelling.

Dinosaurs did not have lips, they have no need for them.

I corrected the spelling boo-boo on the title for you.

course they did

how else would they kiss ?

How can you be sure of that?

First, the jaws had groves where the teeth rested, outside the mouth...Unless dinosaurs had MASSIVE lips, the teeth wouldn't be exposed...Think crocodile, their second closest cousins.

According to paleontologist Robert Bakker, Apatosaurus may have had thick, moose-like lips that would help in gathering plant material...

APATOSAURUS

listen to frogfish artymoon; he's a dino fan.

Although it could be true, it is unlikely...Its probably more plausible that they have a prehensile tongue like giraffes.

what? frogfish, a dino fan? are you sure we're thinking of the same person? good point ff, prehensile tongue makes a convincing theory.

IF there was a dinosaur with lips, it would be Sauropods, but I find it that the tingues are more likely as Dinos are archosaurs, and archosaurs don't have lips.


Lol, my avatar and sig are just a decoy

Serious paleontologists all concurr dinosaurs had lips, and would have looked much like varanid lizards (like the Komodo Dragon) when their mouths are closed. We know this because of the holes for major blood vessels in the maxilla of both predatory and herbivorous dinsaurs. It is not even a debatable point. It is a fact.

Crocodilians do not have lips becasue of their adaption as an aquatic animal, making the lips redundant. Nor do they have the blood vessel holes to support the lips, thus proving the point. Not to mention every reptile except turtles, tortoises and crocodilians also having lips.

Of course, little kids who think dinos are "cooler" with exposed fangs will not want to believe this, but the truth is the truth.

Sorry Frogfish.

Are you implying that the many herbivores which had horny beaks also had lips? Or that, for instance, masiakasaurus had lips over its rather prominent teeth? This seems unlikely.

Certainly, many dinosaurs had lips. However, there are many species which did not. To present your case as absolute is an exageration. As with all things in life, there are exceptions.

-Pilgrim

frog have lips.

You don't have any proof...I have not heard of this before.


yes it is...All ceratopsians, therizinosaurs, and most hadrosaurs had beaks or beak-like structures. Not to mention oviraptorids. Lips are for producing certain sounds and to manipulate food outside the mouth. Therefore, it is probable that carnivores did not have lips, but rather tore flesh like a crocodile. If there were lips in the dinosaurs, they would belong to the herbivores, but it is more likely they had beaks and/or prehensile tongues, as their teeth were pushed forward and the palate curved upwards. That leaves the sauropods with the only ones with a good possibility of lips. But since their closest cousins don't have lips, it is reasonable that they don't have lips either. They most likely had prehensile tongues like giraffes.




I hope your not implying something like this again, or it will revert you to being banned again.


So?

he got you frogfish.

I'm afraid that in this case, Frogfish, you are mistaken, at least in the sense that there is in fact a goodly amount of evidence that most theropods had lips. However, it is hardly an uncontested fact, and as I pointed out, the presense of lips on ALL dinosaurs is believed to be false.

A study by Ohio University done in 1998 suggests that Tyranosaurs may not have had lips at all. Sadly, I can find no information on follow-up studies, and so I cannot vouch for the study's validity. However, it clearly shows that debate on the subject is alive and well. You can read a press release from the university here:

http://www.ohiou.edu/news/months/sept1998/057.html

For the time being, the presence of lips appears to be the most widely held belief, but they were hardly universal, and the debate is not yet finished.

-Pilgrim

Cool. thanks for that. But how did the T-rex stop its teeth form drying out?

Chapstick?

Lips are useful for protecting the teeth from decay. However, dinosaurs, like crocodiles, do not have a permenant set of teeth. Rather, when a tooth falls out, they simply grow a new one. Thus, the problem isn't as great for them as for a mammal. If a tooth is damaged, they need only wait a few months for a replacement.

-Pilgrim

If you look, theropods would have no need for lips as they are used for manipulating small foods. Animals that "rip and tear" like theropods (crocs, sharks, etc) don't need lips...It would be no use to a large Allosaur or such. Even their closest cousins and predecessors, crocs and birds, don't have lips.

I bet you didnt even look at that link did you frogfish.

What is your point?

well just because they dont need lips dosent mean they didnt have em

i mean look at us we have an appendix but it dosent seem to have a significant function

My point is its real resruch in to this topc. It says your not right.

If you are referring to my link, then I believe you are mistaken. It suggests tyranosaurus did NOT have lips, just a Frogfish said.

-Pilgrim

yes, but it said other may.

You compiled research Oh my, what do you have? If you are reffering to the link, it agrees with me. But like almost all research on dinosaurs, they can collapse at anytime. I could e totally wrong, or I could be right that no dinosaurs had lips.

What information do you have to back up lips?


You have a good point, but I'll tell you why this is wrong.

Evolution does not give animals unnessary organs or functions. The appendix actually does something, it helps manufacture T4 cells. But the common belief is that the appendix is a evolutionary remenant from our ancestors...It will dissappear soon if the theory is right.

Eukaryotic Cells have organelles called mitochondria. It is beieved that these mitochondria were actually once prokaryote cells that lived inside eukaryote cells. Mitochondria have useless DNA different from the whole cell. The DNA doesn't serve as a function, but is a evolutionary remenant.

Since dinosaurs did not need lips (with the exception of sauropods, but I still believe prehensile tongues were better), and no ancestor of the dinosaurs had lips, they MOST LIKELY did not have lips.

That will only happen if for some reason, people with an appendix couldn't survive; which isn't the case.

Then why do we have coler in our eyes. The coler in the eye has nothing to do with seeing.

Can you tell us why that is?

It is a useful means of telling different individuals apart, or at least helps in doing so. It also encourages eye contact, which helps to increase facial recognition, which in turn strengthens familial bonds. All of these traits would have been very useful to our ancestors.

-Pilgrim

Correct

I voted "some did".

That makes little sense to me, I could understand if you said that those which did not have coloured eyes were maybe considered unattractive and therefore didn't mate and produce offspring; is that what you were getting at?

Yes and no. I am saying that having colored eyes helps to build a tighter bond between family members, and that a family with tight bonds has a strong reason to work together as a team. It does not in and of itself make the creature better suited to survival but it helps to build traits which do so.

I think that attractiveness played some role in the genetic selection of colored eyes over non-colored eyes. However, it is a case of the tail wagging the dog. Those who had mates with colored eyes were the ones more likely to make eye contact, and thus more likely to have strong family bonds. They bred and were successful, while those who did not care about eye color were less likely to make eye contact and were less successful overall. The result was that more children were raised to find colored eyes attractive. It was because eye color had this effect that it became attractive, not the other way around.

-Pilgrim

Back on topic...If dinos indeed have lips, then the only plausible ones would be the sauropods. They could of possinbly used them to manipulate leaves...But the prehensile tongue like giraffes is more plausible.

Wow, what an out-there question to ask, but it's a good one. I've never really thought much on it, but I'm sure that some had to, considering what the diets of some were. Wouldn't you need lips to lap up water from a nearby stream or lake?

I'd really like to see some ideas tossed around on this one.

No, that's what a tongue is for. How do snakes, turtles, crocs, and birds drink water?

Pilgrim,
Obviously, I wasn't referring to beaked and duckbilled dinosaurs, that should have been a no brainer. By "all", I was referring to all toothed dinos.

Frogfish,
For someone who claims he keep reptiles, I am rather disappointed in your inability to grasp this concept. Komodo Dragons and other varanids must have had a very similar feeding behaviour to theopod dinos. They even have remarkably similar, serated and flat teeth. They swallow small prey whole and tear larger prey apart to swallowable size as would theropods. And THEY HAVE LIPS! Their mouths form a tight seal so when they breath, the air comes through their nostrils and their olfactory bulb picks up scents. That's one of the reasons they have lips, the other is to prevent their mouth tissue from drying out. Theropod dinosaurs probably also had the thick fleshy gums like monitor lizards that largely cover the teeth.

The truth is in the fossil evidence. Toothed dinosaurs have holes in their jaws for the blood vessels that feed the lip tissues. Crocs do not have these holes because they have no lips.

It is really not a debatable point frogfish, you are wrong again.

DC

Thank you! thats what I've been trying to tell him.

Actually, you are wrong...The truth does not lie in the fossils, as you cannot infer they had lips from them. The truth lies in the dinosaur's family tree.

Dinosaurs' closest cousin is the crocodilians...They have no lips what-so-ever.

The dinosaurs' ancestor, birds, have beaks, not lips. Birds evolved from smaller theropods or other Saurischians...So it is MORE LIKELY and plausible that they did not have lips.

Lizards branched of archosaurs before dinosaurs evolved.


They don't need lips to accomplish that task.

Dinosaurs' had a Jacobson's organ in the roof of the mouth...They would of more likely kept their mouth OPEN so air can pass over it.


I have just given several points...what's to be dissapointed about?


SG7, you have not been trying to tell me anything...Not to sound cocky, but I think I know more than you on this subject.

You don't read very well do you frogfish? Those holes in the maxillia of all toothed dinos are for blood vessels to go somewhere on the outside of the jaws. If these dinosaurs had lipless jaws like crocodilians they would not have those holes. Those vessels can only be there if there is a large amount of tissue outside of the jaws. Like I said, the proof is concrete, it is not debatable at all, you are wrong as usual.

Im sorry this cutting edge paleontology stuff is not in your outdated , "Big Golden Book of Dinosaurs", but give it a few more years and it will be common knowledge in all the kiddie books on dinos you have apparently memorized.

Evolution points otherwise...Blood vessels just don't mean they had lips. It could of brought extra circulation to the flesh by the mouth, or the gums. Maybe it was a way to cool of through the mouth.




Like always, you don't have proof. Just an opinion. I am pretty sure I know more than you in animal physiology and paleontology than a paleontologist wanna-be like you.




Wow, already resorting to insults on my age? I must be embarrassing you a lot for you to resort to that already If you can't handle the truth DC, leave. Otherwise, you can continue and be suspended for a second time...Pick whichever one pleases you

No more insults, form both of you!!!!!!!!!!1

Thats a very intersting thought. If they did have lips, I'd hate to have been the keeper of the chapstick!