|
|
Post by Supercommunist on Feb 20, 2015 11:10:51 GMT 5
This has been on my mind for a while, how come their doesn't seem to be a single type of carnivorous vertebrate that posses tusks or functional horns? They're clearly viable weapons so I don't see why none have evolved them.
|
|
|
|
Post by Infinity Blade on Feb 26, 2015 9:08:08 GMT 5
Actually, funnily enough, Carnotaurus was at least once proposed to have used its horns as predatory tools against small prey (if the small, blunt horn cores supported even larger, sharper keratinous sheathes). However, the people who proposed this noted that it would be the only instance of predators using horns to kill prey if Carnotaurus could have and did do so. Of course, this doesn't exactly sound to me like the most likely idea out there either. I'm not quite 100% sure about your question either. Gonna go out on a limb here, but maybe it's because other predatory tools, particularly jaws, are already useful for the consumption-ergo damaging-of animal carcasses/bodies in feeding. So if you have an apparatus that can bite off flesh, damage a carcass, yadayadaya, why not use said apparatus as the tool for injuring/killing your prey as well? And since you now have said apparatus for injuring/killing, why then would you need to evolve horns/tusks for that purpose? I could be completely wrong, but this is just what I believe.
References:- "On the palaeobiology of the South American horned theropod Carnotaurus sastrei" (Mazzetta et al., 1998) |
|
|
|
Post by creature386 on Feb 26, 2015 20:25:16 GMT 5
Of course killing and eating with the same part of the body is more handy and more common, but there are after all also predators that heavily rely on claws, relying on horns wouldn't be much different. However, given that predators that heavily rely on their claws are pretty rare, it is not that surprising that there are no horned predators.
|
|
blaze
Paleo-artist 
Posts: 766
|
Post by blaze on Feb 26, 2015 22:56:32 GMT 5
Is there any predator that exclusively relies on its claws for killing? relying on claws for holding unto prey while the mouth does the work doesn't seem very similar to killing with horns.
|
|
|
|
Post by theropod on Feb 26, 2015 23:44:01 GMT 5
Is there any predator that exclusively relies on its claws for killing? relying on claws for holding unto prey while the mouth does the work doesn't seem very similar to killing with horns. Birds of prey have been recorded to kill prey exclusively with their claws, the same may hold true for dromaeosaurids, although presumably they just start eating the prey item alive without bothering to kill it in many cases. An analogous example would of course be the preying mantis. There is a less precise line in the case of insects, their mandibles being homologues of limbs, not the upper intestinal tract iirc, but in principle it's the same, the weapon of prey acquisition and dispatch is not the tool used to dismember it. |
|
|
|
Post by Infinity Blade on Feb 27, 2015 1:10:20 GMT 5
Of course killing and eating with the same part of the body is more handy and more common, but there are after all also predators that heavily rely on claws, relying on horns wouldn't be much different. However, given that predators that heavily rely on their claws are pretty rare, it is not that surprising that there are no horned predators. I was speaking more in general in my post so I know it isn't quite a perfect explanation. I didn't forget that there were/are predators that actually kill with claws (albeit not too many; only two groups come to mind and theropod mentioned both). |
|
|
|
Post by Supercommunist on Feb 27, 2015 2:10:30 GMT 5
Stomatopods.
|
|
blaze
Paleo-artist
Posts: 766
|
Post by blaze on Feb 27, 2015 2:26:15 GMT 5
lol I can't believe I forgot birds of prey and dromaeosaurids.
I wasn't really thinking about arthropods though, seems their scale is too small for horns to be a deadly weapon in one on one confrontations.
|
|
|
|
Post by theropod on Feb 27, 2015 3:13:37 GMT 5
True. They do in many vertebrates tough. I think the reason no predator uses them is that they are not as effective as jaws, unless they are very prominent, requiring major adaptions of the head/neck-region that themselves would impair jaw function.
So developing really large, deadly horns would be rather unlikely, there being no reason why a predator should suddenly start using its skull roof instead of its jaws to kill prey (while most predators have claws and there are conceivable reasons why one might use them more, eventually replacing the jaws in their role as primary weapon).
|
|
|
|
Post by Infinity Blade on Nov 13, 2015 6:51:17 GMT 5
On Carnivora, The All-seeing night (mechafire on here) posted the following information.  The Pinnipeds: Seals, Sea Lions, and Walruses By Marianne Riedman So walruses have been recorded killing seal pups and possibly even kill narwhals at times. The relevance? Well...presumably walruses use their, well...tusks to kill vertebrate prey. In that case, there actually do seem to be predators that kill via goring. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 14, 2015 11:26:41 GMT 5
If ceratopsids really were omnivorous, then there's possible chance out there, small maybe but probably possible, that they may have used their horns to kill prey.
|
|
|
|
Post by creature386 on Nov 14, 2015 20:30:00 GMT 5
Depends on what omnivorous means. In case it refers to eating animals that are smaller than a ceratopsid's beak, using the horns would have been extremely inefficient. But as there is nothing that could prevent an omnivorous ceratopsian from using its horns to kill something larger, it surely happened a few times.
However, I don't know if pragmatic carnivory answers Supercommunist's question. I suggest looking at how he worded his question:Looking at how he worded his question, he was probably referring to carnivores that evolved their horns for hunting and not to animals that have horns for another purpose but can also be pragmatic.
Thinking about it, I guess the reason why this hardly happens is that most predators center their killing adaptations around immobilizing and capturing prey (something claws and jaws both fulfill), as most of their prey is prey that has to be caught and not "defeated" and I guess it is save to assume that even the big game hunters descend from small game hunters and retain their basic adaptations.
|
|
|
|
Post by dinosauria101 on May 13, 2019 6:08:02 GMT 5
Well there's Carnotaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Majungasaurus.
|
|
|
|
Post by creature386 on May 13, 2019 16:24:45 GMT 5
Did they evolve these horns to kill prey though?
|
|
|
|
Post by dinosauria101 on May 13, 2019 20:25:41 GMT 5
^Not quite sure, I thought this thread was just for predators that had them
|
|
