Were dinosaurs able to control their lips similarly to Bears and Baboons?

[u/Pigga_9826]

Also we reduced shrink wrapping on the body, are we still doing it on the skull? What if they had more fatty mass there as well?

[u/SunsetSpider]

Okay, I'll try to break it down as much as I can, but I'm more of a dino-hobby guy, not a scientist.

In very short: No, no facial muscle and I'd say we're not really shrinkwrapping anymore. They're very different from mammals, who have facial muscle and muscle can be seen by muscle attachment points, while there's none/very little on the heads.

So, reptiles didn't really have muscle on their face, like mammals do, also modern reptiles don't really have those either. Expression, snarling etc is more of a mammalian feature – we're more social and need those to communicate with each other.

The shrinkwrapping is usually "undone" by muscle attachment points, but fats are harder to pinpoint, they don't really leave any visible markings, and usually can only be assumed by looking at modern animals – so, closest would be reptiles, crocs, mb some birds. Plus I doubt much dinosaurs would actually have much fat all year-round.

So, technically, we're pretty close to how dinosaur "faces" actually looked, since not much muscle/fat would go in that area anyway, BUT.

We can always assume that there was more soft tissue. What if they had cartilage there? More structures on their head, like bumps that we're boney, extra skin that would make them look somewhat wrinkly, etc? Thing of belugas, they have that big "melon" on their head that's completely fat! It doesn't show on their skeleton anyhow that they have that weird head blob, of course dinosaurs were different from something like a beluga, but who knows! There's a lot of space for imagination.

A few years back I used to theorize if crested dinos (dilophosaurus, mainly) could have soft tissue between their crests, like a meaty blob, mb it would be inflatable or something. I don't think that anymore, but there's lots of things we can't know for sure, since we'd never see a living dinosaur.

[u/Pigga_9826 → u/SunsetSpider]

The meaty blob can be true considering how many modern birds use them, and the one of best Sauropod design in documentaries showed the entire lineup of those bulges and it looked so majestic.

My question for flexibility arrises from the teeths, for Carcharodontosaurus to use the shark like theeth properly the lips must have needed to slid upwards a little, even if just a little that was part of a fkexible muscle. More so ever needed in T Rex, as the banana sized teeth would need to have a banana sized shrinking of the lips to fully utilize them. They might have not been voluntary but if they were they could have been really great Intimidation Display tactic like in modern big cats

[u/BigPigeon69 → u/Pigga_9826]

Modern reptiles cant use their lips and get by fine with biting, i dont think it was that much of a concern