Quote from: Xenodog on Nov 02, 2013, 12:08:48 PM
More good posts Vertigo!
On their intelligence I remember in the 'Science and Making of' of BBC The Ballad of Big Al documentary (if you're in the US you may have seen it under the title of just 'Allosaurus' or something?) they had a brain scan of a theropod dinosaur and I think it resembled a crocodile brain more than a bird's. But both this and my memory of it are dated - the programme over 10 years old.
Why thank you!
I'm English, so yup, it's Big Al to me too. I'm not particularly fond of Walking With Dinosaurs but I remember loving that special.
It's funny how ten years is now enough to form an era gap in palaeontology, when the science is two centuries old. The rate of discovery over the past few decades has been increasingly scorching. But that research still sounds right - most dinosaur brains were reptilian in structure, and even maniraptoran brains were a bit closer to those of crocs than of birds (if memory serves, they reached about 30% of the way to the latter). Allosaurus is just outside of Coelurosauria, so it'd be at around 1%.
Quote from: DoomRulz on Nov 01, 2013, 11:56:16 AMI also think the same of carnosaurs like Allosaurus or Mapusaurus. They had longer arms, one extra claw (three vs. two), and serrated teeth designed for slicing because if you're tackling large sauropods, you aren't going to stand your ground and fight tooth and nail. It's easier to take nips here and there and wait for it to bleed out.
I'd just like to add, I like this theory. Also adds reason for the allosaurs to team up (regardless of whether they were mobbing or organised), as it would take forever for a single predator to bleed out a sauropod - and the more bites it took, the greater the risk of injury to the attacker.