Re: About abelisaurs

[Tim Donovan <uwrk2@yahoo.com>]

 I've suggested that abelisaurs preyed largely on
juvenile sauropods, using hit and run tactics to avoid
adults. 
--- Amtoine Grant <ajgrant@eastlink.ca> wrote:

> As I'm trying to figure out the likely methods of
> attack various 
> lineages of theropods may have used, I find myself
> contemplating on the 
> the abelisaurs. I've read that the lower jaw of at
> least Carnotaurus 
> seems 'weakly' built with more slender than usual
> teeth. To me, it 
> would seem that the jaws may not have been the best
> method of attack. 

   They were probably adaquate to dispatch juveniles
or unarmored titanosars, juvenile and adult, by means
of slash and let bleed.


> But the arms are atrophied as if attempting to make
> a two-legged snake. 
> .
> Which brings me to the feet. Noting the strange
> structure of the 
> foremost caudal vertebra, perhaps this may have been
>  an adaptation to 
> balancing on the tail while striking with the toe
> claws. . Are toe 
> claws known for abelisaurs?
> I was originally thinking that they may have been
> leapers, leaping and 
> ripping at the fleshy necks of sauropods, 

  Titanosaurs could probably assume a tripodal stance
for long periods using their stiffened tails, partly
to reach tree foliage but also occasionally to elevate
the neck beyond the reach of a theropod.



a feat for
> which they would 
> not have needed particularly strong jaws. Perhaps
> the 'wing'-shaped 
> dorsal vertebrae were an adaptation for withstanding
> the stress to the 
> backbone when landing from these leaps. .

 Or just running?

> 
> BTW, watching the Alpha's Egg episode of Dinosaur
> Planet, did anyone 
> else notice that they had Carcharodontosaurs
> attacking the sauropods in 
> South America? Last I checked, Carcharodontosaurus
> is from Africa, 
> Giganotosaurus is from South America. LOL


 South America had carcharodontosaurs in the last
stages of the Cretaceous. There was even a suggestion
that Abelisaurus may have been a carcharodontoaur
IIRC.
> 
> 



                
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