General point for this thread: The mechanical performance of large sauropods is chronically underestimated. The poor critters seem to be constantly reconstructed as super sluggish things that could barely move or react. But a kick, neck slam, or tail strike from a sauropod was probably reasonably fast and had a huge reach. I expect that most species were very dangerous when provoked.
I absolutely agree. But would that discourage pack of _Tyrannosaurus rex_ (if it hunted in packs) from at least occasional attack on large titanosaurs if they had the chance? A few years ago, there was a video of lions attacking adult African elephants, which is a prey some 20 to 30 times heavier than themselves. Adult T. rex was "only" about 8 to 10 times less heavy than adult _Alamosaurus sanjuanensis_. After all, Late Jurassic theropods from the Morrison Fm. ecosystems (_Torvosaurus_, _Saurophaganax_, _Allosaurus_) were probably also attempting to hunt large sauropods on occasion. The key was perhaps in swiftness and bravery :-) Tom
Cheers,âMBH
-----Original Message-----
From: Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>
To: dinosaur-l <dinosaur-l@usc.edu>
Sent: Mon, Jul 1, 2019 7:01 pm
Subject: Re: [dinosaur] Fwd: Re: T. rex hunting Alamosaurus
A 6 -10 tonne adult tyrannosaur likely wasn't agile enough to avoid a well-placed kick, tail slap or neck
bump from an adult sauropod either.
The sauropod would not only have the advantage of mass, but also of stability (four legs verses two). A
non-fatal glancing blow from a tyrannosaur would be unlikely to knock a large sauropod over (or even faze
it much), whereas a glancing blow from a large adult sauropod could completely topple a multi-tonne
biped, resulting in an incapacitating injury that might ultimately prove fatal to the predator.
Even if tyrannosaurs attacked as a group, with younger and more agile members harrying the adult
sauropod to exhaustion until the adult tyrannosaurs dared to approach to finish the prey off, there would
still have been the problem of separating the sauropod from its herd members first. Otherwise the
tyrannosaur group would lose their numerical advantage. A sauropod that was already sick or injured in
some way might lag behind the herd and become vulnerable to such a coordinated attack, however a
health adult sauropod accompanied by other healthy adult individuals would likely have been all but
immune to predation.
--
Dann Pigdon
On Mon, Jul 1st, 2019 at 5:02 PM, Poekilopleuron <dinosaurtom2015@seznam.cz> wrote:
>
> Yes, that sounds reasonable. But what if T. rex was just too hungry to wait
> any longer? Perhaps its mighty jaws could speed that process up a little.
> After all, 50+ tonne alamosaurs werenÃÂt agile enough to avoid a well-placed
> bite? Tom
>> If I was a tyrannosaur, I'd follow the herd around until something else
>> brought an adult down for me (disease,
>> injury, old age, etc). Such an event would have been the land-based
>> equivalent of a whale fall.
>>
>> --
>> Dann Pigdon