RE: Bipedal apatosaurs and stegosaurs?

[Rich Travsky <rtravsky@UWYO.EDU>]

On Tue, 15 Oct 1996, Stan Friesen wrote:

> Rob Meyerson wrote:
>  > [...]
>  > this kind of posture would make these animals more susceptable (sp?)
>  >  to predation.  Imagine a Diplodicus reared up, with it's head in the
>  >  stratosphere.  Along comes a hungry Allosaurus.  Even if the Diplo saw the
>  >  theropod coming, it would take a lot of precious time for the animal to 
> get
>  >  all feet on the ground and to engage it's tail for combat.
> 
> Why bother - just bring the front feet down on top of the nasty little
> allosaur! Really, given the large size disparity, the front feet of
> a rearing diplodocid would be higher than the back of any known allosaur.
> 
> In fact, this may well have been a more effective defense mode for
> a thin-tailed Diplodocus than using its tail anyway.

OTOH, how much time would be needed to rear up for such a defense?

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