Post by Infinity Blade on Jan 5, 2020 8:41:41 GMT 5
I'm back at it again with another "fight-y" topic. I hope I'm at least prompting legitimate, thought-provoking discussion on animal behavior and biomechanics, though.
So, there is a study (Krauss & Robinson, 2013) that proposes a unique hunting strategy for Tyrannosaurus (some members here may be aware of it). It was calculated that an adult Tyrannosaurus rex (6,300 kg) could collide into an adult Triceratops (5,000 kg) at a speed as little as 3.6 m/s and successfully topple it over, with the highest speed at which it could do this without injury to itself being 7.5 m/s.
In fact, the authors state that even a subadult Tyrannosaurus would be large enough to topple over an adult Triceratops (they don't give an exact mass figure for a subadult Tyrannosaurus, though).
All this begs the question: would it be a viable offensive or defensive strategy for any terrestrial animal weighing >1,000 kg to literally collide into a similarly large animal with its body to topple it over?
Note: I'm not talking about headbutts; I'm well aware that a head unadapted for collisions (and a body part that takes up comparatively less mass than the trunk, no less) is as good as totaled if used for headbutting at these size scales. I'm talking about collisions with body parts like the chest, shoulder, or anywhere on the trunk region (the study I mentioned above assumes a tyrannosaur colliding with its chest); from what I can tell, the torso tends to take up by far the greatest percentage of an animal's total body mass, so in a giant animal lacking specializations for head ramming, the torso might be the body part best up for a collision against another large animal. Of course, this is assuming the speed the giant animal is moving at isn't so high to the point where it would hurt itself as well (these are animals, not kamikaze fighters).
For instance, imagine two Paraceratherium in an agonistic interaction. Imagine one collides into its rival (with either its shoulder or its chest) with enough speed to topple it over, but not enough to injure itself. Because it is a giant animal weighing multiple tonnes, the rival Paraceratherium could be seriously injured, or even killed by the fall. If this is somehow not enough to be substantially injurious to the fallen animal (I don't know how bad a fall would be to an animal weighing ~1,000 kg), the one still standing could cause further substantial harm by literally trampling or bringing its weight down on its rival.
What do you guys think? Viable or not?
So, there is a study (Krauss & Robinson, 2013) that proposes a unique hunting strategy for Tyrannosaurus (some members here may be aware of it). It was calculated that an adult Tyrannosaurus rex (6,300 kg) could collide into an adult Triceratops (5,000 kg) at a speed as little as 3.6 m/s and successfully topple it over, with the highest speed at which it could do this without injury to itself being 7.5 m/s.
Estimates of tyrannosaur speed also vary widely, with 11 m/s being the lowest estimate of a tyrannosaur’s top speed found in the literature (Hutchinson and Garcia 2002). As a conservative estimate, a speed of 7.5 m/s was used in these analyses. This speed was also chosen as a safe speed at which a Tyrannosaurus could impact a Triceratops without causing injury to itself. Upon impact with a Triceratops, a Tyrannosaurus would experience a significant reduction in velocity. Assuming that the initial velocity of the Triceratops is 0 m/s, then the deceleration would be enough to cause potentially serious injury to the tyrannosaur. At speeds below 7.5 m/s, the deceleration would be less than 3.4 g, which has been calculated as the greatest impact force a Tyrannosaurus could withstand without injury (Alexander 1996).
When colliding with a stationary Triceratops, the Tyrannosaurus would experience a significant deceleration, running the risk of injury caused by the collision. Alexander (1996) calculated that a Tyrannosaurus could withstand a deceleration equivalent to approximately 3.4 g without sustaining injury. Using the model described below, a tyrannosaur could have successfully tipped a ceratopsian at an attacking speed of only 3.6 m/s, well within the literature values for Tyrannosaurus speed estimates.
In fact, the authors state that even a subadult Tyrannosaurus would be large enough to topple over an adult Triceratops (they don't give an exact mass figure for a subadult Tyrannosaurus, though).
It is clear that, at least on paper, an adult Tyrannosaurus rex would have had the ability to tip over a Triceratops, rendering it vulnerable. An adult, and even a sub-adult Tyrannosaurus, could have generated more than enough force to tip over an adult Triceratops.
All this begs the question: would it be a viable offensive or defensive strategy for any terrestrial animal weighing >1,000 kg to literally collide into a similarly large animal with its body to topple it over?
Note: I'm not talking about headbutts; I'm well aware that a head unadapted for collisions (and a body part that takes up comparatively less mass than the trunk, no less) is as good as totaled if used for headbutting at these size scales. I'm talking about collisions with body parts like the chest, shoulder, or anywhere on the trunk region (the study I mentioned above assumes a tyrannosaur colliding with its chest); from what I can tell, the torso tends to take up by far the greatest percentage of an animal's total body mass, so in a giant animal lacking specializations for head ramming, the torso might be the body part best up for a collision against another large animal. Of course, this is assuming the speed the giant animal is moving at isn't so high to the point where it would hurt itself as well (these are animals, not kamikaze fighters).
For instance, imagine two Paraceratherium in an agonistic interaction. Imagine one collides into its rival (with either its shoulder or its chest) with enough speed to topple it over, but not enough to injure itself. Because it is a giant animal weighing multiple tonnes, the rival Paraceratherium could be seriously injured, or even killed by the fall. If this is somehow not enough to be substantially injurious to the fallen animal (I don't know how bad a fall would be to an animal weighing ~1,000 kg), the one still standing could cause further substantial harm by literally trampling or bringing its weight down on its rival.
What do you guys think? Viable or not?
