Re: Stegosaur plates as protection......

[Randy King <randyk@informix.com>]

Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. wrote:
> 
> At 06:54 PM 6/30/97 -0500, Mark wrote:
> >
> >Jurassic theropods were certainly not so top-heavy as a T. rex, but I still
> >rather doubt they would have grabbed a Stegosaur by the underside of the
> >throat.
> 
> Especially since the neck of Stegosaurus, at least, was heavily armored, as
> documented by the two road-kill specimens and excellently mounted by Ken
> Carpenter in the Denver Museum.  (The technology to do such mounts was
> absent in previous decades, so none of the older mounts show the "chainmail"
> arrangement of armor on the neck of Stegosaurus).

Great, there goes the basis of my whole argument.  :)

It still seems odd that an animal would attack through the armor of that
beast.
But I can't think of anything better.  Anyway, an armored throat would
suggest
that that was important to defend.  I might suggest that the throat was
armored
first, followed by the back?  Hey, don't take that as gospel.

-Randy

> 
> Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
> Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
> Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
> University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
> College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661

-- 
**********************

My other job is dictator/kamikaze pilot.

Marc: http://www.cs.ruu.nl/~hansb/d.chessvar/makerule.html