THE DINOSAUR DEATH POSE As a rule, vertebrate fossils are not discovered as neatly connected skeletons that were tranquilly buried. This is certainly true for the dinosaurs, most of whose bones are found disarticulated (not connected in such a way as to demonstrate normal relationships), dispersed over a broad area, or only preserved in small part. When a complete skeleton is found intact, it provides much more information to the paleontologist than a loose pile of bones. One of the striking characteristics of many of these connected skeletons is that they exhibit a peculiar contorted position popularly called the "death pose." This pose of many fossilized dinosaurs, with wide-open mouth, head thrown back and recurved tail, likely resulted from the agonized death throes typical of brain damage and asphyxiation, according to two paleontologists. "An extreme, dorsally hyperextended posture of the spine (opisthotonus), characterized by the skull and neck recurved over the back, and with strong extension of the tail, is observed in many well-preserved, articulated amniote skeletons (birds and other dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and at least placental mammals). Postmortem water transport may explain some cases of spinal curvature in fossil tetrapods, but we show how these can be distinguished from causes of the opisthotonic posture, which is a biotic syndrome." (Faux, Cynthia Marshall, Padian, Kevin, "The Opisthotonic Posture of Vertebrate Skeletons: Postmortem Contraction or Death Throes?," Paleobiology, Spring 2007.) Creationist Ian Juby has collected a large sample of such cases (some pictures to the right) and presents this as evidence of fossilized creatures meeting their demise during the Genesis Flood. "I probably have close to a hundred examples now of the death pose, both in land animals and marine organisms. Obviously the marine organisms didn't lay out in the desert and shrivel up...In fact, this is a sign lifeguards look for, to spot if someone is drowning--even people, when they are drowning, pull their heads back." (Private correspondence, used with permission, 2009.)