Re: Hadrosaur tails

[brucet@mindspring.com (bruce thompson)]

>Now, I'm sure that if a hadrosaur was about to get eaten and had no
>other choice it might have employed its tail as a weapon, but
>the hadrosaur tail seems poorly designed for such use.  I also don't
>think that it is necessary to find a defensive weapon in the body
>plan of every herbivore.  There are lots of modern day herbivores
>that have little or no weaponry, and evade predation through other
>means.  And there are many herbivores that have features that could
>possibly be construed as weapons but which are rarely used as such
>(show me a wildebeest impaling a lion or hyena and I'll recant :-)  )

>Matt Wedel

        If hadrosaurs flocked, then their defenses likely derived from
group behavior.  In which case how the individual animal stacked up
mano-a-mano against individual predators is not the whole story.
        And if someone produces an account of a wildebeest hooking a hyena
or lion, you'd still be right.  It seems to be rare.

bruce

        Remove SPAMKILLER from return address to reply.

        "Dammit, Philbert; what kind of a lepidopterist are you?  For god's 
sake,
man; stand up to them!"