Re: bipedal lunges

[Jonathon Woolf <jwoolf@erinet.com>]

John Clavin (Digital) wrote:
> 
> I'd have to say that these charges being fatal is pretty much the
> general idea behind them.
> But I wasn't thinking of charges being used against other Triceratops',
> more as a defence against predators. I fully agree that for intra
> species fights, mating displays and such like, close quarters "horn
> wrestling" is likely. The deer analogy here is quite apt.
> However that cannot be their entire purpose, because then why would they
> be pointed, and why have a shield behind them?
> If you consider the speed and momentum available to a charging
> triceratops, and a forward facing set of weapons, I think this points
> very clearly to the charge being used as a tactic.

I tend to think that the horns are _emphatically_ offensive weapons, if
indeed they were meant as weapons at all.  Horn-fencing bull
_Triceratops_  just doesn't click, for some reason.  

Hmmm . . . I just got a spectacular mental image . . . a herd of
_Triceratops_ winds a tyrannosaur, and a squad of adults breaks away and
charges _at_ the scent.  Musk-oxen use a co-operative defensive
formation against predator attacks.  Maybe ceratopsids used a
co-operative _offensive_ formation as a counter-predator tactic.  

-- JSW