How delicate are we talking really ? So much so that fighting off predators isn't a real possibility ? The look of them and prob they're behaviour was possibly more for deterence than combat ?
The beauty and mystique of animals often lie in their behavior, behavior which can vary drastically in the interactions with different organisms. What I mean by this is that in saying the skull of Styracosaurus wasn't particularly strong it does not imply that Styracosaurs would have been incapable of defending themselves against carnivores. What you need to bear in mind is that these animals weren't capable of galloping towards one another and butting heads, but when faced with a predator this was not the probable attack strategy of choice. Rather than slamming its entire skull into the target, what it could do have done, and what we know of the origins and insertions of muscles in its neck seems to indicate is that it would have had an extremely powerful upward thrust. Styracosaurs could duck their heads and buck upwards to impale a target. The difference between this and the aforementioned head-butting is like choosing a spear in lieu of a battering ram as one's weapon of choice. Different but no less effective as a weapon. The crest was more likely than not for ornamentation or thermoregulation, though Styracosaurs could have locked horns at close range and pushed against each other in tests of strength. This is along the same vein as what we're coming to accept in Pachycephalosaurs. Their skulls, likewise, would not have been able to withstand distance butting, but with all of the tiny bumps and protrusions, the skulls could have locked up spectacularly. Bakker put it best when calling all those little bumps "Cretaceous velcro", keeping the two animals firmly in place with one another until the strength of one animal gave way. With not only horns but other keratinous protrusions Styracosaurus may have behaved likewise. A perfectly valid contestual notion, right alongside lateral bashing.
This came up last night on another forum..the horns of ceratopsians had bone in them..so if bitten off or broken..would they just grow back ? The Styrac maquette does look like maybe a couple of his horns have kinks in them from possible breaks or new growth points where he has healed.
The keratin i nthe story doesn't explain the smoothness then..I have to wonder why it was sculpted like that ?
The bone would have healed over, but it would not have grown back if fractured. The same rules apply to dinosaurs as apply to all other extant vertebrates.
Keratin has the potential to be quite smooth, but it's a trait we often see in zoos and with captive animals, not creatures typically in the wild. I feel it was more creative style than biological accuracy that shaped the decision, pun intended. It wasn't intentionally meant to befuddle us as a flaw, but as with any art the same subject can be viewed vastly differently in interpretation from one artist to the next.
I can see Tyrannosaurs hunting at least in pairs...but going after sick or wounded prey makes more common sense to me..not attacking healthy individuals. That practice would have been started by young or immature Rexes and prob wouldn't have lasted long...heh
Healed wounds in Rex prey would indicate they didn't have that toxic bite that Komodo Dragons possess...or the herbivores had access to some plant or herb that aided healing.
Not true at all regarding the stipulation T.rex wouldn't tackle healthy prey. The healed wounds on the skeletons of a plethora of Cretaceous fauna perfectly match the deep puncturing maxillary teeth on ADULT Tyrannosaurs. It's not a matter of prey experimentation on the part of juveniles.
Also, I should add that we have several finds with Tyrannosaurs of various ages all fossilized in the same area. Given that we have proof of the cannibalistic tendencies of T.rex, family pack gregariousness is conveyed very, very strongly by several juveniles and subadults living and dying among fully grown adults. As I've mentioned in a few other topics before, T.rex may not only have varied prey depending upon whether it was a lone hunter or group hunter, but it could even have varied from being in a pair or family group. Family groups with juveniles would have had a much wider range of prey. Juveniles had much longer tibias and fibulas comparative to their femurs, making them some of the fastest Cretaceous North American predators, and still equipped with those fearsome bone-crushing jaws. Further strengthening the notion of these juveniles as crucial facets of the pack dynamic is evidence in the growth plates which show T.rex would have matured extremely rapidly to about 1,000 pounds in weight, and stayed around that same size for close to a decade, afterwards it begins to grow once again more steadily. These animals would have opened up a wider niche to herd herbivores toward their larger parents who wielded the real tools of destruction intended to kill swiftly and without difficulty. Edmontosaurs and other hadrosaurs, animals devoid of the precarious defenses possessed by large ceratopsians and ankylosaurs, would have been easier to dispatch in an ambush by a waiting T.rex. Lone adult Tyrannosaurs likely have shown a preference toward scavenging, but T.rex packs would have been a true force to be reckoned with across North America.
And you're correct that the bite of T.rex wouldn't have had quite the effect on flesh as the bite of a modern day Komodo dragon, but remember just this year we discovered Komodo dragons to not only have that HIGHLY septic bite, but also (as to all other monitor lizards) a series of ducts lining their jaws to inject venom. Komodo dragons and other monitor lizards are venomous creatures, possessing venom which has hemolytic properties for the lysis of red blood cells. T.rex would have had a septic bite just as monitors do, only on a much larger scale. T.rex, however, did not have venom in its arsenal. Animals could well have died from infection regularly due to T.rex bites, but animals also recover from infection as well. Shark bites are arguably just as septic as ora bites, but fur seals, blue fin tuna, and countless other aquatic and semi-aquatic creatures survive with massive scars as testament to their harrowing survival. No magic medicinal herbs that herbivores desperately sought out after having been attacked by a Tyrannosaur, just the marvelous immune system of which vertebrates have been endowed.
I'll have to get back to them about the herding behavior.. I always assumed prehistoric herbivores were much like herding herbivores today..as herding does make sense from a survival standpoint. That documentary last night was pretty certain ankylosaurs were loners..but I remember a find that included a few individuals in a group..maybe not a "herd " but def not " loners " either.
Yea, and in that same documentary Pete Larson and Bob Bakker apparently had no problem sexing Tyrannosaurs unlike the rest of the paleontological community.
Take whatever you see in any documentary with a grain of salt. The entire time Larson and Bakker were claiming, in a surprisingly resolute manner, that female T.rexes were the larger sex, I was squawking away with Thomas Holtz (also featured on the special) decrying those same statements, which are frankly embarrassing given what we've learned in the past half-decade alone. For starters, one T.rex we have definitively sexed was a member of the gracile morph, "Bob". What's interesting about "Bob" is that "he" was actually an ovulating female with a medulary bone.
Just like how Sue, presently the most famous member of the robust morph, possessed the male chevron. It's why we're beginning to rethink sexual dimorphism in T.rex, and find either the males the larger sex, or for size to be associated more with age and ecological dominance. All are equally valid, given the contradictory finds along sex-based arguments.
I too have heard of Ankylsoaur fossils being found in groups. I can't recall the age range composition of the group off hand, but perhaps they were all gathered simply because they were all loners drawn by the same natural impetus, or they could have been gregarious. Again, both are equally likely.
To simplify and dumb down commentary for the public is what offends me. It treats viewers wholesale as unintelligent and ill-informed, while those of us who actually study these things sit there, ?????, and even laugh. Bless Matt Wedel for his candor.
