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Re: [dinosaur] Giant azhdarchid defense against theropods



Large azhdarchids were bigger than many of the theropods in their environments. 
They were reasonably well armed, and a bite of wing slam against a smallish 
theropod would be extremely damaging. Just like today, I would imagine that 
smaller predators would have avoided combat with predators larger than 
themselves, so most things probably left them alone.

That said, a large azhdarchid was going faster than anything at the time could 
run by the end of a launch cycle (a process that only took 0.5-0.75 seconds or 
so, as best estimate). So, unless it was ambushed, an azhdarchid could simply 
flee from any theropod of the time, if needed.

Cheers,

âMBH

Sent from my Cybernetic Symbiote

> On Mar 8, 2021, at 10:53 PM, Poekilopleuron <dinosaurtom2015@seznam.cz> wrote:
> 
> ï
> Good day!
> 
> Just a curious thought - do you think that giant azhdarchids (like 
> Quetzalcoatlus, Arambourgiania and Hatzegopteryx) could defend themselves 
> against most theropods with their long bills (or even large wings)? 
> Presumably there were many situations when these creatures were dwelling on 
> land and they had to fight off swift predators. Of course there was no way 
> for them to keep away large tyrannosaurids, but what about small to middle 
> sized theropods (dromaeosaurids, smaller abelisaurids etc.). Any thoughts? 
> Thank you in advance! Tom