RE: _T. rex_ strikes ( was Ceratopsian frills)

["Cunningham, Betty" <Cunningham@sega.com>]

    Stephen said:

>Weren't America's plains once overrun with millions of buffalo whose
>size made them fairly invulnerable to wolves?

wasn't size that protected buffalo-was shear numbers.
prairie wolves caught and killed solitaire buffalo-just as modern wolves   
can kill the even-larger-than-a-buffalo moose.

>It's the "battleships" I wonder about.  By the process of elimination,
>some say _T rex_ was a scavenger, driving hunters from carcasses.  How?
>A lion can chase away smaller predators by swatting, lunging from a
>crouch, and turning fast.  Was _T rex_ built for any of these things?

Lion isn't built for it either.  Lions protect their kills from other   
scavengers by out-numbering their major compettitors. One animal at a   
time can protect the others from minor snatches for food from single   
animals, but it takes the whole pride to run off competing hyenas or   
jackal packs.

>I think _T rex_ used impact because I don't see how it could have
>attacked like a wolf or like a tiger.

T rex is not built like a tiger or a wolf.  We're talking biped not   
quadraped. Why should it use a method developed by 4-legged animal s and   
not use a method developed for a biped with big teeth (which may not HAVE   
a modern equivalent to compare to)?

>I use _T rex_ as an example of an impact hunter because I don't have
>pictures and data for other tyrannosaurs. I think it was other
>tyrannosaurs, who appeared earlier, that specialized in sauropods.

According to Farlow, et all, T rex would kill itself doing so as an adult   
with full mass and acceleration behind it.  How do you see T rex managing   
this succesfully?

 -Betty Cunningham