Re: Guts-Eating Spinosaurs

["no go" <honkietong@hotmail.com>]

> >Look at the Spinosaurus in JP3, I know, not the best reference to use, 
> >but compare both the forelimb of the "running-skull" and the 
> "croc-on->legs", who do you think will win in a armwrestle? It's like 
> Dennis >Spade versus Arnold Schwarzenegger. So the forelimbs in Spinosaurs 
> >were made to hold down struggling prey, like T. rex evolved it's big 
> >jaws to do the same. If you catch a fish it will go crazy and when you 
> >have a skull as delicate as the one of a Spinosaur to catch a >struggling 
> fish, it would surely break. T.rex, with it's reinforced >skull, wouldn't 
> have to worry about a struggling Hadrosaur, since the >skull is adapted to 
> this kind of stress with it's enormous bone-mass.
>
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Just how delicate is a spinosaur skull? From what I've seen of the skull of 
> _Baryonyx_, they look to be fairly sturdy. They might not have been made 
> for whatever it was tyrannosaurs were doing, but I wouldn't really call it: 
> "delicate."
>
> Well, maybe _Irritator_, but that was an exceptional skull (and an 
> imaginative misuse of plaster).
>
> Jura


Oh boy! Oh boy! Dino Warz!

Spinosaurid jaws are probably resilient enough to catch fish. As indicated, 
they do show resistance to bending forces, and more then strong enough for 
catching large fish (this was no dingdarnit scavenger!). Of course, these 
jaws are way too lightly built to attack large game effectively without 
risking a substantial chance of damage. And it seems to me the conical teeth 
were weaker to lateral stresses then teeth of other dinosaurs suspected to 
hunt big prey. This indicates Spinosaurus would have avoided subduing 
sizeable prey by means of the jaw (like a Tyrannosaurid). Rather, the hands 
of the animal were the real weapons and could have been used to subdue the 
prey before the jaws came in on a less stress-intensive exerise to finish 
the job. Or at least, this is my interpretation of Spinosaurid predatory 
behaviour based on its morphology. Some people (at least those around me who 
have been watching JP3) have suggested that the bite force of Spinosaurus 
was incredibly powerful and even more so then Tyrannosaurus by a large 
magnitude, though the general morphology of the teeth and jaws, plus the 
slender neck seems to indicate to me otherwise... in addition to the fact I 
have a bad feeling my chain is being yanked again.

Now in the very unlikely hypothetical fight between Spinosaurus and 
Tyrannosaurus, it is my two cents worth that the Tyrant lizard probably 
holds the high ground, if not a lot of it. Even discounting obvious 
advantages in speed and mobility, it appears to me that Tyrannosaurus rex is 
capable of removing large areas of Spinosaurid anatomy in a single bite and 
that seems to do a great deal more damage then a grounp of bad lacerations 
from a set of nasty claws. What about the arms? Generally, despite the arms, 
it's a bad idea to try to hold down a T.rex even if you have a size 
advantage (if you can catch the Tyrannosaurus in the first place). Not to 
mention Spinosaurus lacks the M1A2 Abrams MBT depleted uranium-enhanced 
chobhamm composite armour it spots in JP3 that allowed it to survive a 
13,400+N T.rex neck bite with no ill effects. ;-)

My two movie tickets worth...

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