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[Ralph Chapman <MNHAD002@SIVM.SI.EDU>]

A very unusual paper has come out from Tony Thulborn:

Thulborn, Tony. 1994. Mimicry in ankylosaurid dinosaurs. Records of the
    South Australian Museum 27(2):151-158.

The volume is very interesting in that it's all paleontology, although
mostly Tertiary with discussion of Diprotodon, etc. - as you would expect
given the sediment distribution in Australia. It is the Proc. 4th
Conference on Australasian Vertebrate Evolution, Paleontology and
Systematics (CAVEPS -93) in Adelaide in 1993.

Tony's paper is facinating and thought-provoking, although that's not
to say he's convinced me. Ken Carpenter reviewed it, so his comments wouldq
be of great interest. In the paper, he suggests the tail club in Late
Cretaceous ankylosaurids was not the defensive weapon most of us supposed
it to be because of limitations in the movement of the tail in those forms.
Instead, he suggests it served as a mimic of the beasts head to draw
attacking theropods to the wrong end of the animal. He includes a figure
of a grazing anky with the tail sticking up at a 25 or 30 degree angle and
notes how similar it looks in profile to a quadrupedal posturing Iguanodon.
As such, it would be the first case of dino mimicry. My intuition is that
theropods would not fall for it but it's a thought-provoking paper. As you
probably have guessed from past postings, I have a soft spot in my heart
for those trying to throw monkey wrenches into conventional dogma, and Tony
is good at that and a very bright guy. It's worth a look.

By the way, the voting seems all in favor of my continuing to do this when
I have the time, so I will.

Ralph Chapman