Stegosaur plates as protection......

[Sean Connell <thelip@flash.net>]

I see their (stegosaurus at least)plates as very effective defensive
structures.Think about it.If your a large theropod attacking your prey
what would be the most effective strike? The spinal column.If your going
after a large dangerous herbivore with a really nasty anti-pred weapon
you need to disable or kill the beastie as quickly as possible. The
spine is the obvious choice for this.Relatively little damage and the
prey is effectively "out of it".If stegos weren't blessed with these
plates then contemporary preds would have it much easier when it came to
attacking them.I have seen some postings here regarding how fragile the
plates were but that isn't really the point as I see it.Claws aren't as
effective at puncturing and slashing bones as strong jaws ( look at the
extant felids and thier attacks). To really inflict trauma to a spinal
column it's helpful to have strong jaws and teeth.Oh well, to get across
quickly what I'm trying to get at here's a picture.---You're a
theropod.You come against a prey animal with a tail weapon.Whether your
an allosaur type "grapple-bite" or tyrannosaur type "pursuit and
BITE",pred the least suicidal approach is to would to inflict trauma to
the spine.You attack and do so relatively quickly, thus taking down an
otherwise dangerous meal.--Scene (2)...You move to attack the spinal
column but instead of a bare target that you can easily wrap your jaws
around, you encounter these tall plates.These plates pose some
problems.You can bite through the plates, THEN attack the back. BUT,
this takes precious time.Instead of one fluid fast attack ,you now must
get the plate/plates out of the way.While your doing all this you are
very close to an animal that approaches your mass at least,and that has
a weapon capable of at least injuring you.That's all it takes.Usually a
predator with ANY injury that slows it down during a subsequent attack
will perish.I'll trail off here because of exhaustion but I hope
somebody understands what I'm saying.>G<......Speculation as usual,Sean
C.