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Re: Meat eating sauropods
> There was a mention on either s.b.p or the dino-list about a Bakkerian
>claim of sauropods grabbing theropods with their mouths and tossing them
>around. It was only an off-hand comment, no real detail, but it piqued my
>interest.
"This seems unlikely to me for one simple reason: leverage."
I thought of that, too; also that sauropods did not generally have large
enough mouths or teeth to grab and shake a big predator. More likely, I
think, a sauropod might have jabbed at an attacker, using his/her head to
deliver nasty butts (and using the butt, i.e. the tail, to whack the
attacker, too, if possible.) But head-butts would have been a defense of
last resort, since sauropod heads were not reinforced with extra bone, or
spiked. The defense of first resort would have been bulk--and maybe
stomping. --Merritt Clifton, editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE.