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Post by razor45dino on Mar 12, 2024 22:36:27 GMT 5
I may be wrong here but I think certain sauropods might be more formidable P4P than commonly assumed. It would take a powerfully built and muscular body to have the frame to grow to those giant sizes of the largest titanosaurs, and the smaller titanosaurs retain this build. Many of them have insanely good reach with their tails as weapons as well. Titanosaur necks are also fairly thick instead of skinny like commonly portrayed in reconstructions. Some of them also have some lethal looking thumbs believe it or not as well. And then of course there are armored sauropods and sauropods with clubbed tails also. Attachments:
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Post by Infinity Blade on Mar 13, 2024 1:10:35 GMT 5
Yes I've long suspected that sauropods in general are more formidable than they look at first glance and how people tend to write them off as. They could theoretically use their tails to bash the heads of other large animals (although, some sauropods had proportionately more massive tails than others), maybe even use the top of their necks to hit with (instead of the throat, which can put their throat in danger). And the thumb claws (at least for those that had them or possessed large ones) could be some nasty weapons in a close quarters scrap.
Most of all, I think that just having a lot of body mass (and most sauropods weighed over a tonne) is a weapon in and of itself, useful for body slamming and potentially breaking bones. This is something available to pretty much any multi-ton animal and the effects of which are less potent in much smaller ones.
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Post by mechafire on Mar 13, 2024 6:08:17 GMT 5
I contend that when it comes to the insect/arachnid/myriapod weight class, rhinoceros beetles and stag beetles are top tier. They have tank-line builds, body anrmor, and males are equipped with huge weapons right on their faces and spend their adult stages essentially slamming the shit out of each other. It’s not like they’re carnivores or anything, the massiveness of their arsenals is just for combat. I don’t think there are any animals whose life cycle and anatomy revolves around fighting as much as stage beetles and rhinoceros beetles.
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Post by Supercommunist on Mar 13, 2024 6:22:57 GMT 5
Great horned owls apparently often hunt other birds of prey like hawks or goshawks so I feel that elevates them a lot.
Birds of prey seem like glass cannons. In a lot of instances they can kill another animal before they can fight back but if they fail to take out the other animal the table can turn quickly. There are dozens upon dozens of videos of constrictor snakes turning the tables on similar sized birds of prey.
Dromaeosaurs seem like they would be better at maintaining the momentum if things go bad. Unlike an eagle, their flapping arms can reliably inflict damage and their jaws are a lot deadlier than the beak.
I like terror birds but ultimately it is difficult to say how formidable they were since we don't have any good modern analogs. Hopefully someone will one day construct a realistic TB beak and test out the damage.
Rhinoceros beetles have no real offensive ability. I am honestly not sure they could kill a large insect unless they kept pushing them against a hard surface or something. Stags do seem formidable but warrior beetles are probably more formidable on millagram per milligram basis.
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Post by Supercommunist on Mar 13, 2024 12:26:33 GMT 5
When I looked at Erickson's chart again, I noticed that dwarf crocodiles seem much more impressive than the smaller caiman species. Osteolaemus had a body mass range of 9-34 kg, a molariform bite force range of 1375 to 2509 newtons and a caniniform bite force bite range of 902 to 1588 newtons. The spectacled caiman and the smooth fronted caiman had similar body mass ranges but produced noticeably lower bite forces. The spectacled caiman is really notable because altough the largest dwarf crocodile was bigger than the largest spectacled caiman in the study, the smallest spectacled in the study was over twice the mass of the smallest dwarf crocodile but still seemed to produce considerably lower bite forces. Even the larger durophagous broad snouted caiman doesn't end up beating the dwarf crocodile. The dwarf crocodiles produced molariform bite forces and almost matched the broad snouted caiman's caniniforms bite forces despite being noticeably smaller (9 to 34 kg body mass range vs the broad snouted's 16 to 45 kg body mass range).  |
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Post by razor45dino on Mar 15, 2024 7:00:12 GMT 5
Great horned owls apparently often hunt other birds of prey like hawks or goshawks so I feel that elevates them a lot. Birds of prey seem like glass cannons. In a lot of instances they can kill another animal before they can fight back but if they fail to take out the other animal the table can turn quickly. There are dozens upon dozens of videos of constrictor snakes turning the tables on similar sized birds of prey. Dromaeosaurs seem like they would be better at maintaining the momentum if things go bad. Unlike an eagle, their flapping arms can reliably inflict damage and their jaws are a lot deadlier than the beak. I like terror birds but ultimately it is difficult to say how formidable they were since we don't have any good modern analogs. Hopefully someone will one day construct a realistic TB beak and test out the damage. Rhinoceros beetles have no real offensive ability. I am honestly not sure they could kill a large insect unless they kept pushing them against a hard surface or something. Stags do seem formidable but warrior beetles are probably more formidable on millagram per milligram basis. what about the claws of modern raptors? They seem to be larger proportionally than their prehistoric relatives, I think that's another plus that would be really helpful you happen to have some videos you mentioned on you ? |
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Post by Supercommunist on Mar 16, 2024 4:16:09 GMT 5
I just posted some accounts in a more relevant thread (prey defeating predators).
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Post by razor45dino on Mar 16, 2024 6:04:34 GMT 5
just saw them. A dromaeosaur could probably handle those situation better yes, because of long skulls and armed hands. How much better? IDK. Interesting to see though.
so the BOP is probably more effective at getting the jump on something/killing quickly, but a drom would be able to sustain a prolonged fight better then
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Post by Supercommunist on Mar 24, 2024 1:26:52 GMT 5
I like sauropodmorphs more than sauropods.
/photo/1
How do they rank?
Even though I like them I'd wager they aren't that formidable for their size. Their claws don't look anything special.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Mar 26, 2024 17:50:14 GMT 5
I like sauropodmorphs more than sauropods. /photo/1 How do they rank? Even though I like them I'd wager they aren't that formidable for their size. Their claws don't look anything special. Bipedal sauropodomorph claws seem to be less elongated but more robust (at least in side view) compared to some of the meathook claws of certain theropods. Here's the forearm of Sarahsaurus, for instance.  (And a good example of Plateosaurus)  I don't doubt that with keratin the claws would be more impressive. Bob Bakker likened them to a combination between an anteater and a cassowary. Not only did they have powerful forelimbs and sharp, strong claws on their fingers, but they also bore sharp, even fairly large claws on their feet. This is the pes of Plateosaurus.   I think they'd be beaten by most macropredators at parity (e.g. theropods; a "typical" theropod could do all these things a bipedal sauropodomorph can, except it has far more lethal jaws), but better than say, an anteater or cassowary used for comparison above? Maybe, I think. |
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Post by Supercommunist on Mar 27, 2024 5:21:52 GMT 5
It's worth noting that in AVA forums people often assumed that the anteater's long delicate would be a huge detriment in a fight.
While I think it's impossible to argue that it is a weakness, anteaters have a history of kicking ass and there are a lot more videos of them fending off predators than being killed by them.
On a similar note, the sauropodmorphs long neck might not be as big as a detriment as many would think.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Apr 9, 2024 4:35:58 GMT 5
Speaking of clawed animals, what about Therizinosaurus?  If we granted that the claws were fragile even with their keratin sheathes (which may not necessarily be true), then the reliability of these weapons would have clear limits, and we could already count them out as being the best weapons ever. That said, I don't think we can rule out the possibility that, under dire circumstances, they could and would have still been used as such. Narwhal tusks, elephant tusks, and oryx horns are all comparatively fragile. But not only have all of them been documented being used as stabbing weapons, but they all have their own lethal track records as well. They certainly didn't evolve primarily for stabbing other animals, and I still wouldn't consider them the best weapons ever, but they can still be lethal if necessary despite their relative fragility. I would say the same for the claws of Therizinosaurus, even if they were fragile. If they broke in combat, the consequences would be no worse than that for an oryx with a broken horn. It would have lost something important, but it would by no means be the end of the world for it. |
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Post by razor45dino on Apr 9, 2024 22:47:10 GMT 5
Speaking of clawed animals, what about Therizinosaurus? If we granted that the claws were fragile even with their keratin sheathes (which may not necessarily be true), then the reliability of these weapons would have clear limits, and we could already count them out as being the best weapons ever. That said, I don't think we can rule out the possibility that, under dire circumstances, they could and would have still been used as such. Narwhal tusks, elephant tusks, and oryx horns are all comparatively fragile. But not only have all of them been documented being used as stabbing weapons, but they all have their own lethal track records as well. They certainly didn't evolve primarily for stabbing other animals, and I still wouldn't consider them the best weapons ever, but they can still be lethal if necessary despite their relative fragility. I would say the same for the claws of Therizinosaurus, even if they were fragile. If they broke in combat, the consequences would be no worse than that for an oryx with a broken horn. It would have lost something important, but it would by no means be the end of the world for it. I don't think they are going to be that strong not only because of the recent study that showed they weren't very good combat tools but also because of that long neck which could make them very vulnerable |
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Post by Infinity Blade on Apr 10, 2024 0:16:49 GMT 5
Speaking of clawed animals, what about Therizinosaurus? If we granted that the claws were fragile even with their keratin sheathes (which may not necessarily be true), then the reliability of these weapons would have clear limits, and we could already count them out as being the best weapons ever. That said, I don't think we can rule out the possibility that, under dire circumstances, they could and would have still been used as such. Narwhal tusks, elephant tusks, and oryx horns are all comparatively fragile. But not only have all of them been documented being used as stabbing weapons, but they all have their own lethal track records as well. They certainly didn't evolve primarily for stabbing other animals, and I still wouldn't consider them the best weapons ever, but they can still be lethal if necessary despite their relative fragility. I would say the same for the claws of Therizinosaurus, even if they were fragile. If they broke in combat, the consequences would be no worse than that for an oryx with a broken horn. It would have lost something important, but it would by no means be the end of the world for it. I don't think they are going to be that strong not only because of the recent study that showed they weren't very good combat tools but also because of that long neck which could make them very vulnerable EDIT: Ah, I think I see what you're saying, you're talking about Therizinosaurus as a whole. I don't think they were the best fighters ever, but still capable of delivering fatal damage. So in that case I agree. |
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Post by Supercommunist on Apr 10, 2024 1:40:01 GMT 5
Speaking of clawed animals, what about Therizinosaurus? If we granted that the claws were fragile even with their keratin sheathes (which may not necessarily be true), then the reliability of these weapons would have clear limits, and we could already count them out as being the best weapons ever. That said, I don't think we can rule out the possibility that, under dire circumstances, they could and would have still been used as such. Narwhal tusks, elephant tusks, and oryx horns are all comparatively fragile. But not only have all of them been documented being used as stabbing weapons, but they all have their own lethal track records as well. They certainly didn't evolve primarily for stabbing other animals, and I still wouldn't consider them the best weapons ever, but they can still be lethal if necessary despite their relative fragility. I would say the same for the claws of Therizinosaurus, even if they were fragile. If they broke in combat, the consequences would be no worse than that for an oryx with a broken horn. It would have lost something important, but it would by no means be the end of the world for it. From a survival perspective they just need to be tough enough to puncture the skin or rake the flesh. Most predators will give up after taking a good hit and thanks to its sheer size, zino probably could do a good amount of blunt force trauma. Also while its claws may be more fragile than a lot of animals horns they are probably a lot easier to use. In a fight to the death scenario therizinosaurus is probably in trouble against more dedicated killers. |
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