Andrewsarchus mongoliensis vs. Sarkastodon mongoliensis

[jhg]

The Andrewsarchus should be more like an entelodont. And Sarkastodon takes this actually.

[Deleted]

^I'd suggest you have a good look on this thread to see why so many people favour Andrewsarchus, and it just so happens that it is because that Andrewsarchus is much bigger than Sarkastodon (size comparison is on page 1). Sarkastodon isn't as big as initially thought.

[jhg]

800 kilgrams of solid creodont with a bite capable of making bone seem like paper. I root for Sarkastodon anyway.

[Infinity Blade]

Did...did you read what he said?

[jhg]

Yeah. But I still like Sarkastodon better.

[jhg]

And Sarkastodon crunches the competition. Winner: Sarkastodon.

[Deleted]

What important advantages would Sarkastodon hold in this match-up that would make it win here more often than not?

[jhg]

Andrewsarchus is actually about 730 kilos scaling from Daeodon. Plus, I hypothesize Sarkastodon was the true predator and Andrewsarchus was mostly a kleptoparasite. You people just hate Sarkastodon. I will always love that "flesh tearing tooth."

[Deleted]

Dec 1, 2016 8:41:21 GMT 5 jhg said:

Andrewsarchus is actually about 730 kilos scaling from Daeodon. Plus, I hypothesize Sarkastodon was the true predator and Andrewsarchus was mostly a kleptoparasite. You people just hate Sarkastodon. I will always love that "flesh tearing tooth."

Something interesting from Carnivoraforum (by Ausar):

While it may well be that Andrewsarchus was an entelodont-like predator and/or omnivore (for more on entelodonts see Tet Zoo picture of the day # 23 and Giant killer pigs from hell), there are, however, indications that Andrewsarchus was freakishly weird, and doing something very special. In fact, the weirdness of its skull is routinely not depicted correctly in life restorations. Its snout is strikingly long and narrow, and ‘pinched in’ about half-way along its length. The result is that the distal end of the rostrum forms a sub-circular rosette that almost resembles that of a spinosaurid theropod. Its orbits are located way down on the sides of its skull and were widely separated by the broad base of the snout, and its entire occipital region looks narrower, and smaller, than expected in an animal of this size. The glenoid fossa is flattened compared to that of ‘proper’ mesonychians, and the associated pre- and post-glenoid structures on the zygomatic arch are small. The sagittal crest is small as well. These features all suggest that the jaws were relatively weak. And while the upper canines were said by Osborn (1924) to be enormous, they aren’t: ‘The canines are very reduced in size and in proportion to the whole dentition and to the whole skull’ (Szalay & Gould 1966, p. 154). Clearly, Andrewsarchus is just crying out for some neat functional study on cranial kinematics and function. Come on: surely someone, by now, must have thought of doing FEA or something on its skull?

Source

Regarding Andrewsarchus' bite force: a while back theropod made the following comparison.



As you can see, when scaled to the same length as Tyrannosaurus' skull, the posterior end is comparably wide. The rostrum is comparably wide as well except at the pinch of Andrewsarchus' snout and at the point of the canines and the third(?) incisors. Although this is a setback in terms of hard biting, the pinch is still not nearly as developed as in the rostrum of Spinosaurus. And for whatever it's worth, another cetancodontamorph, the hippopotamus, also seems to have a pinch in its snout (and seemingly a more marked one at that), yet no one disputes that it still has a very powerful bite.



Also, that the sagittal crest is small merely suggests that the muscle attached to it (the temporalis) had a reduced role in contributing to a powerful bite compared to other muscles, not that the bite was weak. Given how the zygomatic arches were enormously wide, perhaps the masseter took on an even greater role in jaw adduction in Andrewsarchus.

carnivoraforum.com/single/?p=8807857&t=10502496

This suggests that, not only does Andrewsarchus have a very large skull, but also an effective reach advantage.

It is correct that Andrewsarchus isn't at around a ton, but it still holds some considerable advantages over Sarkastodon including a better bite, reach advantage, height, and robusticity. There are not many important advantages that I could see for the creodont here.

Look at the comparison of the skulls from the first page. How do you suspect that such a low-lung animal is going to be able to effectively kill the artiodactyl quicker than vice versa?




Should be worth noting that Sarkastodon might not have even been able to grapple judging by one of the posts on the first page.

Regarding grappling abilities on Sarkastodon, one of its closest relatives and morphologically very similar, Patriofelis, lacks retractable claws and in fact its ungals are proportionally small and straight, indicating that "they entirely lacked the grasping and tearing power developed in Felis" according to Osborn, Gunnel & Gingerich (1991) says that the features of the radius indicate that Dipsalidictis was capable of supination and pronation to at least some degree but Oxyaena's was designed more for weight bearing and was less mobile at the wrist. Oxyena is considered ancestral to Patriofelis and much smaller so we can expect to the mobility to diminish even further in Patriofelis and more so in Sarkastodon which was at least 40% larger still than the largest Patriofelis.

Read more: theworldofanimals.proboards.com/thread/562/andrewsarchus-mongoliensis-sarkastodon#ixzz4RnGWswwU

So again, it's quite difficult for me to see why you are still capable of defending the creodont in such a situation where it is outmatched in capabilities against its opponent to this extent. It's a bit immature to say that I favour the artiodactyl because I "hate" Sarkastodon. Rather, I think it is actually your favouritism which makes you support it here more often than not.

[blaze]

The 800kg estimate for Sarkastodon is based on comparing its dentition to a lion, clearly, this isn't very reliable as Sarkastodon isn't a felid nor a carnivoran, it's a oxyaenid and they had proportionally large heads, on top of Sarkastodon has very large dentition relative to its head, so double inaccuracy for that estimate.

Based on Patriofelis, we are talking about an animal ~2m in head-body length, anything over 300kg is probably not realistic.

[Ceratodromeus]

Judging by the comparison and the above post from Blaze, Andrewsarchus should take this quite comfortably.

[jhg]

Dec 3, 2016 21:59:15 GMT 5 blaze said:

The 800kg estimate for Sarkastodon is based on comparing its dentition to a lion

Really now? Never had that before. 
Regardless, I'll only favor Sarkastodon for the better name. It's dead. So very, very dead. Maybe it can compensate the height by biting the ankles but that's a little risky. 

[blaze]

Well, most people don't search for and read the publication that produced the 800kg estimate, I did.

[jhg]

I am no fool.

[An Goldish Jade]

andrewsarchus would easily crush sarkastodon with its jaw, this is a mismatch