Re: new boook on functional morphology

[ornstn@inforamp.net (Ronald Orenstein)]

>Shoving with the long straight-ahead horns of a Triceratops sounds 
>blindingly lethal, especially backed up with a mass of several tonnes.  
>Most intraspecies - "shoving" horned beasts have horns 
>directed upward, backward, or sidewards.  Ceratopsians look as if they 
>ran into things to kill 'em.  
>
>John McLoughlin

Antelopes vary in this.  Smaller antelopes with short straight horns (eg
steenbok) do inflict serious injuries on each other; larger ones with more
elaborate horns are more likely to engage in shoving matches.  Note, though,
that these do not have to be bighorn-sheep-style head-buttings; they can
include locking horns and twisting from side to side.  As to what
Triceratops did, who knows, but to get an idea of its capabilities I think
you would have to look beyond the shape of the horn to the whole head and
neck structure, to determine how the horns could have been presented and
where the greatest stress-bearing areas were.  Has anyone done this?

And of course ceratos could have, and probably did, vary among themselves in
this way.  What, for instance, was something like Pachyrhinosaurus doing
with its strange lump of a horn?
--
Ronald I. Orenstein                           Phone: (905) 820-7886 (home)
International Wildlife Coalition              Fax/Modem: (905) 569-0116 (home)
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