Re: Ceratopsian Shield Holes

[Stan Friesen <swf@ElSegundoCA.ATTGIS.COM>]

This whole thing gets into a rather difficult area to study,
due to limited evidence for behavior in fossils.

I rather suspect that the "principle" use of the horns was
*intra*specific competition, NOT protection from predators.
Today most herbivores, even those with substantial offensive
weaponry (aka heavy horns) prefer to run from predators rather
than fight. (Neither elephants nor rhinocerases have any natural
predators, so they do not really count as counterexamples).

Of course, if cornered or caught, they would have certainly
*tried* to use their horns defensively.  For this reason, I
seriously doubt that healthy adult ceratopsians were often
attacked by predators.  Predators prefer to avoid the risk
of injury when there are alternatives available.  For instance,
prairie wolves trailed bison herds and picked off straggling young
and old or sick individuals.

This means, in my opinion, that the situations for using the
neck shield as a shield would have been rare.  Triceratops
was probably a special case, and even there I suspect the
solidness of the crest was oriented towards internal competition.
That is, it is quite possible that Triceratops males competed
in a more vigorous fashion than was usual for ceratopsians,
and thus needed a real shield. [It has been suggested that
most ceratopsians competed by means of shoving matches with
locked horns rather than by butting heads].

swf@elsegundoca.attgis.com              sarima@netcom.com

The peace of God be with you.