mimic or the tale of the tail

[psparks@CERF.NET (paul sparks)]

There has been a lot of discussion on the use of tail bashers by
ankyosauridae vice mimic and testability of these ideas.  One area of
testability is if there have been any carnosaurs of the right age the has
been knee-capped of perhaps gotten a broken jaw. These are quite distinctive
injuries and possibility fatal in the long run.  The injury might be
correlatable to the type of weapon used, ie club.

On the other hand, as in many of these types of confrontations the aggressor
(meateater and no good or bad inference intended) does not want to get hurt
in getting its breakfest.  Large preditors today will break away from a
possible condition where he/she might get hurt because there is no payoff.
There is usually another Big Mac over the next hill.  Therefore there may be
very few occurances where a battle actually occured and most kills either
happened very quickly or not at all.  Which may mean that the mimic approach
was used to a very large degree of success to decrease the surprise
potential of the aggressor and enhance the survivability of the earter of
plants.

paul w. sparks  Psparks@cerfnet.com
"over the heather the wet wind blows
I've lice in my tunic and a cold in my nose."
anon