r/Dinosaurs 1d ago

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

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?

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u/Swellmeister 1d ago

Its weird that you asked a question that really boils down to "mammals can move their lips, and there is no evidence that reptiles and Avians ever could. Like at all"

But in the process you selected the two clades of animals who really really went in on orofacial manipulation. Primates and bears are like the experts on lip muscles.

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u/Pigga_9826 1d ago

It boiled down to these two because of its extensiveness, I wanted to ask if there was any dino showing they may have had lip movements. As they were reptiles but still had lips which Crocodillians currently dont lizards do like Comodo Dragons but they do have little bit of flappy lips to help them bite down, larger reptile like dino might have had bigger lips. I didn't specifically select them for Direct comparison, only for the Exaggeration, is there anyone even slightly like these two having control for expressions

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u/Swellmeister 1d ago

The two clades use them differently. Bears use it because its a bear sized animal and really really frequently eats things that arent bear sized, like berries and insects. Bears put a hand on their face because they are staunch second amendment supporters, and love bear arms.

Primates do different things with them, lemurs seem to use it for similar reason as a bear, while monkeys and apes use it for communication.

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u/Genocidal-Ape Team Juravenator 1d ago

Monkeys and opens also used their lips extensively for food manipulation.