TY - JOUR T1 - Diving dinosaurs? Caveats on the use of bone compactness and pFDA for inferring lifestyle JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2023.05.04.539484 SP - 2023.05.04.539484 AU - Nathan P. Myhrvold AU - Paul C. Sereno AU - Stephanie L. Baumgart AU - Daniel Vidal AU - Frank E. Fish AU - Donald M. Henderson AU - Evan T. Saitta Y1 - 2023/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2023/05/07/2023.05.04.539484.abstract N2 - Measures of bone compactness in amniote tetrapods of varying lifestyle were used to infer that two spinosaurid dinosaurs (Spinosaurus aegyptiacus, Baryonyx walkeri) were diving “subaqueous foragers,” whereas a third spinosaurid (Suchomimus tenerensis) and other sampled nonavian dinosaurs were non-diving terrestrial feeders entering water only as waders. We outline shortcomings in this analysis that involve bone compactness sampling and measurement, lifestyle categorization, the inclusion and exclusion of taxa in the dataset, and flawed statistical methods and inferences. These many shortcomings undermine the evidence used to conclude that two spinosaurid taxa were avid divers. Bone compactness indices remain a valuable tool for interpretation of lifestyle in extinct species when based on sound dataset composition, robust statistical analysis, and consilience with evidence from functional, biomechanical, or paleoenvironmental considerations.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -