Quote from: BANE on May 05, 2014, 08:26:17 PM
I'm not worried about a raptor biting me I'm worried about the claws.
I can punch a raptor in the face if need be. I can't do much against those foot swords.
It's not clear exactly what they used the toe claw for. They originally evolved for tree climbing in more basal animals, and Deinonychus very likely used them for clinging on to large prey.
They
probably functioned as a more direct weapon too, the fossil of Velociraptor and Protoceratops locked in combat seems to show the dromie kicking or latched on to the ceratopsian's throat. The surprisingly stocky legs of dromaeosaurids also suggests a design intended to reduce leg stress.
But, in a study of numerous foot bones from a wide array of dromie species,
no evidence of stress was found, at all.
And the thing is, when you look at what a nasty bite they had, that may have been all the weaponry they needed. If you tried to punch it in the face, odds are you'd be losing that hand.
Quote from: DoomRulz on May 05, 2014, 09:57:11 PMNot necessarily. I don't know of any study of dromaeosaurid hunting behaviour (Vertigo?) but I think it's safe to say they would swarm you before you knew how to react.
Unfortunately, their predatory behaviour is still very mysterious - it would take a freak set of footprints to clear up the issue.
Deinonychus is the only dromie suggested to be social, and given that the hippo-sized Tenontosaurus was top of its menu, it must have been a pack hunter too. It would take around ten Deinonychus to match the weight of a subadult Tenontosaurus, so 'swarm' sounds like the operative word.
They weren't particularly fast, but their light build suggests very high energy, so I imagine they'd tire out the prey over a long chase like today's wolves. At which point, I think they'd jump on it and pull it down through weight of numbers, clinging on with those toe claws, while repeatedly biting it.
If the toe claw did function as a weapon, I'd guess that one Deinonychus would try to take a kick at the prey's throat while the others weighed it down - similarly to a lion hunt, in which one predator goes for the choke hold while the others keep the prey subdued.
