So carnotaurus was a fast runner. OK but I always hear that their tail were really stiff and not good for quick turns. So what were they hunting where they had to be super quick but had to keep running in more or less a straight line?

alphynix:

awesomlyautistic:

alphynix:

Yeah, the tail anchored some enormous muscles associated with moving the legs, so it didn’t have much flexibility and Carnotaurus couldn’t make sharp turns.

It may have been an ambush predator, basically suddenly sprinting at things and catching them before they had a chance to dodge – and if it actually was hunting especially large prey, then it’s likely its targets weren’t exactly super-agile either.

Or perhaps even something like persistence hunting, following fleeing/wounded prey over very long distances until they collapsed from exhaustion.

I wonder how the reduced arms (little more than nubs, really) and blunted face played into this sort of hunting style?

The reduced arms probably happened just because it wasn’t really using them for much, and they became rather vestigial. (Although Carnotaurus actually had some relatively strong arm bones compared to its close relatives, and it’s possible they still had a function – maybe slapping at each other with the pointy spur-like fourth fingers, or waving them around for some sort of visual display.)

The blunt shape of its skull along with its powerful neck muscles allowed it to make powerful downward slashing motions, and it’s been hypothesized that it used its jaws like a club or hatchet and hacked at targets with its teeth. So its hunting method may have consisted of following large prey and repeatedly running up to tear big chunks out of them, gradually weakening them.

I wonder, is it possible they were venomous or had a significant amount of bacteria on their teeth? I’m thinking of something like Komodo dragons, which stalk and repeatedly envenomate their prey until it collapses and they can kill it.