African Bush Elephant (short tusks) vs Brontomerus mcintoshi

[Infinity Blade]

African Bush Elephant - Loxodonta africana

Image taken from here->

Order: Proboscidea
Family: Elephantidae
Shoulder height: average of 304-336 cm; world record of 400 cm (Larramendi, 2015)
Body mass: average of 5.2-6.9 tonnes; world record of 10.6 tonnes (Larramendi, 2015)
Age and Location: Holocene epoch, Africa
Diet: variety of plant material such as grasses, reeds, bark, and branches (Estes, 1999)
Weapons: Two tusks (IMPORTANT: the elephant individual we will use in this matchup is only armed with a pair of short tusks with exposed lengths of no greater than 50 centimeters)

Brontomerus mcintoshi

© @ DeviantArt user Teratophoneus

Clade: Sauropoda
Clade: Camarasauromorpha
Body length: 14 meters? (BBC news article)
Body mass: ~6 tonnes? (BBC news article)
Age and Location: Early Cretaceous Utah
Diet: Plants (specific preferences unknown)
Weapons: Tail, manual claws->, pedal claws->, neck(?)

[dinosauria101]

Well, may as well contribute.

As I said in the matchup advisory thread, this is kinda a stalemate as neither animal seems to have much weaponry to kill the other. If I HAD to take one, I'd lean towards the dinosaur as what it has at its disposal, such as kicks, seems more efficient than the elepehant. So stalemate with an edge to the dino.

[Infinity Blade]

I presume the elephant no longer has the reach to stab the sauropod without getting attacked itself.

This elephant is significantly less able to cause fatal damage to a similar sized animal as one with reasonably sized tusks, but maybe enough stabs can still be enough to kill. After all, the elephant still has powerful neck muscles powering its head and tusks. On the other hand, assuming Brontomerus had reasonably sized thumb claws, it may be able to rear up and just start stabbing and raking the elephant's face or the sides of its neck. There's also the sauropod's hindlimbs; they may or may not be able to be raised high enough to kick the elephant's face, but even if not, I'm sure they could be used to target the elephant's forelimbs. And once again, the elephant's tusks in this case are not long enough to exploit any reach advantage to convincingly end the fight as it might otherwise.

IMO this will be bloody (perhaps a little lengthy) slugfest. Not entirely sure who would win.

[Infinity Blade]

Any other thoughts? It's been a while since I've thought of a versus scenario and was interested enough to make an actual thread about it. I don't really want my thread to die so soon.

[Verdugo]

Nov 12, 2019 4:34:38 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

Any other thoughts? It's been a while since I've thought of a versus scenario and was interested enough to make an actual thread about it. I don't really want my thread to die so soon.

How about this video?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F97RZ-IYWcU&feature=emb_logo

The tusks of short-tuskers are actually very strong and are formidable weapons as you can clearly see it demonstrates here. Those vehicles in the video can easily weigh over 1 tonne and the Elephant just tore through it and tossed it around like card boards... The tusks of short-turkers are quite straight (and not curved in any awkward manners like those of long-tuskers) and align with the cranial-caudal axis of the body. In theory, they should be well-adapted for goring, stabbing, and ramming.

Wouldn't intelligence factor also play a role in this case? Normally, i would not put too much weight on this factor, however, when the gap is too big (such as in this case) it may very well matter more than what we usually give it for.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuDtiurkLu8
^ The Elephant may be able to pick up a stick or something to confuse and distract the Dinosaur, then rams it over using its robust head, neck, and straight tusks.

[Infinity Blade]

Ah, nice!

Nov 12, 2019 5:51:04 GMT 5 Verdugo said:

Nov 12, 2019 4:34:38 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

Any other thoughts? It's been a while since I've thought of a versus scenario and was interested enough to make an actual thread about it. I don't really want my thread to die so soon.

How about this video?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F97RZ-IYWcU&feature=emb_logo

The tusks of short-tuskers are actually very strong and are formidable weapons as you can clearly see it demonstrates here. Those vehicles in the video can easily weigh over 1 tonne and the Elephant just tore through it and tossed it around like card boards... The tusks of short-turkers are quite straight (and not curved in any awkward manners like those of long-tuskers) and align with the cranial-caudal axis of the body. In theory, they should be well-adapted for goring, stabbing, and ramming.

Yeah, that's impressive. I still think an elephant can do something even with short tusks, I just don't think it will have the reach it would otherwise have with even reasonably sized moderately long tusks to hurt the sauropod without getting in range to be attacked itself. That's part of the reason why elephant with reasonably sized tusks vs vanilla sauropod is quite solidly in the former's favor.

I still don't think the elephant's tusks are built for ramming, though. I think you're aware of how they're constructed, especially at the base. Their shortness would be conducive to withstanding stress, but the base of the tusk (probably the part embedded in the socket) is still very thin-walled and filled with pulp (otherwise hollow).

Wouldn't intelligence factor also play a role in this case? Normally, i would not put too much weight on this factor, however, when the gap is too big (such as in this case) it may very well matter more than what we usually give it for.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuDtiurkLu8
^ The Elephant may be able to pick up a stick or something to confuse and distract the Dinosaur, then rams it over using its robust head, neck, and straight tusks.

I've seen that video before, but I don't hold my breath that something like that would happen here. From the looks of it, the elephant's encounter with a rhino didn't seem like a serious fight; when elephants really want to kill something (especially another large animal) they really just seem to do it like you'd expect an animal with a bulky body, strong neck, big head, and goring weapons to kill. The rhino itself also wasn't fazed a whole lot by the elephant throwing the stick (to be fair, the elephant may not have been trying to aim all that well considering how off target it was, but even then it might be expected to have some value in distraction, which didn't occur with the rhino).

Just wanted to hear an opinion, do you think I still made a mismatch here or is this a good fight?

[Verdugo]

Nov 12, 2019 6:07:48 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

I still don't think the elephant's tusks are built for ramming, though. I think you're aware of how they're constructed, especially at the base. Their shortness would be conducive to withstanding stress, but the base of the tusk (probably the part embedded in the socket) is still very thin-walled and filled with pulp (otherwise hollow).

I used to think it that way too. However, having seeing videos like this in which the Elephants just lifted, shredded, and tossed around tonnages of metals (which would in theory put high Bending stress on its tusks) without having its tusks broken, i started to think i may overlook other some other factors and i may very well underestimate the strength of Elephant's tusks.

Anyway, here is an X-ray of an Elephant's skull that i found on the Internet:

^ The hollow base of the tusks, which you're alluding to, is actually anchored deeply into the socket (as you already suggested). This would probably reinforce the 'hollow' base of its tusk and make the tusks in a living animal overall much stronger than what one would expect when looking at the tusks in isolation. This appears to be consistent with what we see in the video too, the tusks are clearly quite strong in order not to break when the Elephant used it to lift and toss around large vehicles.

Also, assuming the tusks are relatively straight, the Stress created by ramming would be usually mostly in the form of axial/longitudinal Compression stress, which in theory, would be less likely to cause breakages than Bending stress (created when the Elephant lifts and tosses things around with its tusks). I'm not suggesting a high motion/speed ram. Obviously, at this body mass, a low motion/speed ram is much more probable

Also, aren't the tusks made out of enamel? Which in theory should be stronger than bones and keratins? Not sure about this one.

Otherwise, the Elephant can also lower its tusks (to get its tusks out of the way) and ram with its head (which should be suited for the task) but i don't know if that would be necessary. As you can see in the video, the Elephant had no issues using its tusks as formidable weapons to tear vehicles apart.

Here is a video of Elephant (low motion) ram against a jeep:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=99VNZPt2MIs

Here is another video of Elephant's rampage. It's not really relevant to 'tusk strength' discussion but i just want to put it here because i feel like i (and maybe someone else here) sometimes forgot just how strong the Elephants really are.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GiywN4NAF8

I've seen that video before, but I don't hold my breath that something like that would happen here. From the looks of it, the elephant's encounter with a rhino didn't seem like a serious fight; when elephants really want to kill something (especially another large animal) they really just seem to do it like you'd expect an animal with a bulky body, strong neck, big head, and goring weapons to kill. The rhino itself also wasn't fazed a whole lot by the elephant throwing the stick (to be fair, the elephant may not have been trying to aim all that well considering how off target it was, but even then it might be expected to have some value in distraction, which didn't occur with the rhino).

You're probably right in this regard. In the end of the day, the Elephants are not predatory and they're probably not used to using their brains for formulating strategies to kill other things (like Orcas for example). I merely just pointed that out because i feel like the intelligence factor is usually underestimated due to the fact that it's difficult to quantify. I just feel like the intelligence gaps here are quite big (it's something that i also considered in Elephants vs Theropods match-up, but in the end of the day, macropredatory Theropods are just too well-armed and formidable when compared to the Elephant). Elephants' cognitive capabilities would be much more similar to humans' than something like a Sauropod (who probably did not have much cognitive thinking at all). Something that is 'common-sense' to Humans and Elephants may not be the same to the Sauropod.

Just wanted to hear an opinion, do you think I still made a mismatch here or is this a good fight?

Really can't see how this could even remotely considered mismatch. If you put two herbivores at weight parity at each other, it's rarely ever a mismatch (the same cannot be said for Carnivores vs Herbivores at weight parity). I'm leaning towards the Elephant based on the factors that i pointed out. However, the Sauropod here appears to be more formidable (lb 4 lb) than your 'typical' Sauropods based on what you said so it can really go either ways.

I think you should feel free to make more non-sympatric match-ups tbh, it should be fun!. Non-sympatric match-ups are usually good excuses for us to think more about morphology, mechanics, and physics of these animals (until it got too ridiculous for any reasonable discussion, *cough* Beaver *cough*). I actually intended to make a non-sympatric match up between Arctodus simus and Majungasaurus (i even made a size comparison for that!) just so i can have an excuse to talk about their Bite forces (and all the muscles architectures craps). But then i feared it would generate zero responses and interests so i just decided to drop it.

[Infinity Blade]

^ The hollow base of the tusks, which you're alluding to, is actually anchored deeply into the socket (as you already suggested). This would probably reinforce the 'hollow' base of its tusk and make the tusks in a living animal overall much stronger than what one would expect when looking at the tusks in isolation. This appears to be consistent with what we see in the video too, the tusks are clearly quite strong in order not to break when the Elephant used it to lift and toss around large vehicles.

This isn't protection from high speed/energy collisions. It doesn't really matter how deeply anchored the tusk is into the socket, high enough stress from a high energy collision will be transferred to the base of the tusk one way or another and more than likely damage it. The tusks are clearly strong enough to lift massive things, but a high speed collision/ram would have far higher energy and peak stresses involved, which I seriously, seriously doubt the base of an elephant tusk can withstand.

Also, assuming the tusks are relatively straight, the Stress created by ramming would be usually mostly in the form of axial/longitudinal Compression stress, which in theory, would be less likely to cause breakages than Bending stress (created when the Elephant lifts and tosses things around with its tusks). I'm not suggesting a high motion/speed ram. Obviously, at this body mass, a low motion/speed ram is much more probable

Oh, that's actually more palatable. The elephant in the first video you posted in your response seems to be going at rather low speeds. Judging from the time I assume its tusks pierced the side of the jeep (and it may be worth noting that though it was obviously metal and obviously still impressive, the part it pierced seemed to have been quite thin too) it doesn't seem to have contacted the vehicle with a whole lot of energy (I'd have expected the jeep, and consequently the camera, to have been pushed back from the momentum, but I didn't notice any pushback). I'm not entirely sure I would even dub that a collision.

Also, aren't the tusks made out of enamel? Which in theory should be stronger than bones and keratins? Not sure about this one.

No. Elephant ivory is made largely of dentin with an outer layer of cementum. Enamel is only present at the tip, and even then it's worn off pretty soon during ontogeny and never replaced.

"An African elephant tusk can grow to 3.5 meters in length. Enamel is only present on the tusk tip in young animals. It is soon worn off and not replaced. Whole cross-sections of proboscidean tusks are rounded or oval. Dentine composes 95% of the tusk and will sometimes display broad concentric bands. Cementum, which can be thick in extinct genera, covers the outside of the tusk. Cementum can present a layered appearance, particularly in mammoth."

www.fws.gov/lab/ivory_natural.php#elephant

Neither dentin nor cementum are as hard as enamel, although the latter has similar hardness to bone (link).

Otherwise, the Elephant can also lower its tusks (to get its tusks out of the way) and ram with its head (which should be suited for the task) but i don't know if that would be necessary. As you can see in the video, the Elephant had no issues using its tusks as formidable weapons to tear vehicles apart.

You're speaking figuratively when you say "tear vehicles apart", right? Actually, looking back at the first video (the one where the Asian elephant lifts a yellow vehicle), I'm not sure if the elephant actually pierced a part of the truck or if its tusks just fitted into some space and held it up by virtue of that.

I probably sound like I'm pooh poohing the feat at this point, but...I do feel it's a legitimate question.

I just feel like the intelligence gaps here are quite big (it's something that i also considered in Elephants vs Theropods match-up, but in the end of the day, macropredatory Theropods are just too well-armed and formidable when compared to the Elephant). Elephants' cognitive capabilities would be much more similar to humans' than something like a Sauropod (who probably did not have much cognitive thinking at all). Something that is 'common-sense' to Humans and Elephants may not be the same to the Sauropod.

It would be quite big, don't get me wrong. Not because I think sauropods were literally the dumbest things ever, but because I see no reason to think sauropods were especially intelligent (this is just a guess, but would being as smart as some of today's unexceptionally intelligent mammalian herbivores be reasonable?), while elephants are exceptionally so.

Really can't see how this could even remotely considered mismatch. If you put two herbivores at weight parity at each other, it's rarely ever a mismatch (the same cannot be said for Carnivores vs Herbivores at weight parity). I'm leaning towards the Elephant based on the factors that i pointed out. However, the Sauropod here appears to be more formidable (lb 4 lb) than your 'typical' Sauropods based on what you said so it can really go either ways.

Oh good.

I'm betting Brontomerus was more formidable relatively speaking than most other "vanilla" sauropods with its notable area for leg muscle attachment for kicking, but otherwise I think it was probably similar to them (at this point, I think the "pound for pound" most formidable sauropods were apatosaurines with brontosmash). But yeah, the whole idea here was to see if I can get a fight between an elephant that can still gore and stab and an otherwise "normal" sauropod to actually be close.

I think you should feel free to make more non-sympatric match-ups tbh, it should be fun!. Non-sympatric match-ups are usually good excuses for us to think more about morphology, mechanics, and physics of these animals (until it got too ridiculous for any reasonable discussion, *cough* Beaver *cough*). I actually intended to make a non-sympatric match up between Arctodus simus and Majungasaurus (i even made a size comparison for that!) just so i can have an excuse to talk about their Bite forces (and all the muscles architectures craps). But then i feared it would generate zero responses and interests so i just decided to drop it.

I usually don't care for a whole lot of matchups these days unless they involve specific animals. I guess I've just lost most of my interest over the years. Elephant versus theropod is one of the few that for some reason still intrigues me (maybe that's because elephant versus T. rex was the first 20+ page long thread on Carnivora that I really got into back then). And then there's this one. I also generally don't have the heart for a discussion, today was somewhat of an exception.

You can feel free to post Arctodus versus Majungasaurus. That's certainly not a bad one. I could try to at least post what I think of that scenario.

---

Edit 12/23/19: I wish we had more material from Brontomerus, including the tail. Honestly, I think a sauropod is actually in a solid place in terms of armament with a long, muscular, massive, and supple tail. It's not as damaging as an ankylosaurid's tail club or a stegosaur's thagomizer, obviously, but even a plain tail can be a serious bludgeoning weapon if massive, fast, and forceful enough. The more massive Brontomerus' tail was (and as long as it could strike with reasonable speed), the more damage it could do if aimed at say, the elephant's head.

[dinosauria101]

Nov 12, 2019 8:02:32 GMT 5 Verdugo said:

1: I think you should feel free to make more non-sympatric match-ups tbh, it should be fun!. Non-sympatric match-ups are usually good excuses for us to think more about morphology, mechanics, and physics of these animals
2: (until it got too ridiculous for any reasonable discussion, *cough* Beaver *cough*).
3: I actually intended to make a non-sympatric match up between Arctodus simus and Majungasaurus (i even made a size comparison for that!) just so i can have an excuse to talk about their Bite forces (and all the muscles architectures craps).
4: But then i feared it would generate zero responses and interests so i just decided to drop it.

How on earth did I miss this post?

1: Yes, I most definitely agree (heck, all of us who even remotely wish to do so ought to make more hypothetical matchups). Hypothetical matchups are loads of fun!
2: Okay, I get that might not have been the best matchup ever on the forum. But it was still a good discussion about elasmosaur jaw and neck.
3: I think that would be a great idea! Only problem is that the dinosaur seems to be almost twice the weight of the bear.
Maybe Afrovenator would be a good matchup; the sizes are about the same.
4: Not in this universe! I would definitely participate in short faced bear vs Afrovenator (or whatever similar sized meat eating dino you see fit)!