The island of Madagascar has for millions of years, housed an incredibly biodiverse ecosystem that today is one of the most remarkable on earth. This was no different in the Cretaceous, where one particularly bizarre theropod genus roamed. This was Majungasaurus, the one-horned ruler of Madagascar. I hope you enjoy!
I call shenanigans on those arm structures. Those look like wing mounts and pectoral plates. I dont think this could fly but it would have been able to glide, possibly even leaping from small outcrops onto prey or otherwise into combat. Even though they wouldnt have had much surface area to weight ratio their massive legs would cushion them well, being nearly half the creatures weight and all. Also, reverse cant legs absorb shock better and allow for a quicker transition to forward locomotion. Also, damn thing couldve kicked on the way down, negating the need for arm claws entirely when paired with the mouth swords. Intimidation factor wouldve been through the roof too. Hell, if i could hunt like that and was that big i might try to drop stones or dirt on prey from a ledge before leaping down to strike. Covering prey in dirt will slow them down and further cushion a hard combat landing. I think we're overlooking something here, thats all
I understand that everybody is now forced to use freely licensed still images instead of just taking any video snipped you can find. I also understand that everybody is trying to make the presentation a little less static by adding a Ken Burns/moving image effect. But this is supposed to be a small movement, not a massive zoom that cuts out large parts of the picture. A movie is often best, a static image still very useful, but a tracking shot over a static image that at any time only reveals 1/10th of the image removes the benefits of the static image without adding those of the movie. Please cut down the Ken Burns.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t carnotaurus known for having a pretty weak bite force? They were thought to repeatedly “axe” their prey with their upper jaws, because of their neck being strong and made for that sort of movement, and their skulls being too weak to kill by biting hard......right? Is that unusual in the family? I always assumed, since the family had very similarly shaped heads/necks/etc., that it was the case with the family, but is that not so? In an image u included, of the top view of a number of the family, it was easy to see how much wider Majung’s skull is than all the others, so does Majung stand out as the one in the family that’s skull is strengthened enough to be able to withstand a strong bite force?
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