African Bush Elephant vs Triceratops

[Cr1TiKaL]

Mismatch. The Triceratops is too big: and it also has much sharper and better positioned horns. The elephant is screwed.

[Carcharadontosaurus]

Mismatch in favor of triceratops, its much bigger and its horns are much better weapons than the elephants tusks.

[Dinopithecus]

I favor Triceratops. Its horns are better placed IMO and height isn't an issue. I'd favor well armed ceratopsids and rhinos over proboscideans at parity. It also looks bulkier and not to mention more stable (due to shorter legs). The beak can also serve as an extra weapon.

[Cr1TiKaL]

A triceratops would also kill an Elasmotherium, which would also kill an ABE.

[Godzillasaurus]

I favor the dinosaur here. I would imagine it, for the majority of the fight, keeping the elephant in front of it, which it would have done against a predator in life, thus disallowing its opponent to effectively gore its flanks. The elephant going straight in would be a horrible idea, as not only are the trike's brow horns pointing somewhat upwards (as in a VERY SLIGHT upward diagonal), but that in conjunction with its more squat posture would easily allow it to impale the mammal underneath its head, specifically in its throat area. The only way the elephant could effectively impale the triceratops would be goring its flanks, which is unlikely, as the dinosaur's frill was very strong and was able to withstand intense amounts of force coming right at it (which was very necessary given the fact that it utilized its brow horns entirely as its primary line of weaponry; that area needed to be very strong to withstand intense head-on forces)

[Deleted]

Oct 20, 2013 12:39:14 GMT -5 Dinopithecus said:

I favor Triceratops. Its horns are better placed IMO and height isn't an issue. I'd favor well armed ceratopsids and rhinos over proboscideans at parity. It also looks bulkier and not to mention more stable (due to shorter legs). The beak can also serve as an extra weapon.

Doubt stability is an issue. This isnt a giraffe we're talking about. Elephant legs are tall but they are built for stability, like pillars. And as I said in other threads, as strong as the beak may be, it wold have a hard time getting a good grip on a similarly sized opponent especially one as tall and built as an elephant. No opinion of this match, though.

[Godzillasaurus]

Dec 5, 2013 19:00:02 GMT -5 @fishfan said:

Oct 20, 2013 12:39:14 GMT -5 Dinopithecus said:

I favor Triceratops. Its horns are better placed IMO and height isn't an issue. I'd favor well armed ceratopsids and rhinos over proboscideans at parity. It also looks bulkier and not to mention more stable (due to shorter legs). The beak can also serve as an extra weapon.

Doubt stability is an issue. This isnt a giraffe we're talking about. Elephant legs are tall but they are built for stability, like pillars. And as I said in other threads, as strong as the beak may be, it wold have a hard time getting a good grip on a similarly sized opponent especially one as tall and built as an elephant. No opinion of this match, though.

Ceratopsian beaks would have been much more effective against smaller, more gracile predators (specifically, animals like nanotyrannus), not large ones like tyrannosaurus or daspletosaurus, as their gapes were very small and their beaks were, fundamentally, used for feeding mostly. This is why I do not include the beak as one of the trike's weapons here. Instead, its brow horns served as its primary weapons, as they were not only long and deadly enough to cope with larger predators, but they were actually placed quite well, as they pointed diagonally upward and, in conjunction with the animal's squat stance, the frill-horn combination would have proved useful against taller predators. The beak would be a horrible weapon against a large animal like an elephant, but its horns would be quite deadly here.

[Dinopithecus]

Dec 5, 2013 19:00:02 GMT -5 @fishfan said:

Oct 20, 2013 12:39:14 GMT -5 Dinopithecus said:

I favor Triceratops. Its horns are better placed IMO and height isn't an issue. I'd favor well armed ceratopsids and rhinos over proboscideans at parity. It also looks bulkier and not to mention more stable (due to shorter legs). The beak can also serve as an extra weapon.

Doubt stability is an issue. This isnt a giraffe we're talking about. Elephant legs are tall but they are built for stability, like pillars. And as I said in other threads, as strong as the beak may be, it wold have a hard time getting a good grip on a similarly sized opponent especially one as tall and built as an elephant. No opinion of this match, though.

Err, with longer legs and less stability, you're more susceptible to getting knocked down. And someone did bring this up elsewhere, just replace a rhino with a Trike and a forest elephant with a bush elephant, as I think it sort of fits this situation as well.

And if these two clash the mass and acceleration of the white rhinoceros plus it's greater stability times the mass and acceleration of the elephant which is rather unstable in running for a distance. Would result either in a gore to the elephant's chest even possibly throat or the elephant falling do to the fact that it's less stable on it's legs.

So yeah, it kind of is an issue.

Forget the beak part, as I realized it won't work anywhere (save perhaps the trunk).

This is still a rather close fight.

[Deleted]

Dec 6, 2013 19:05:51 GMT -5 Dinopithecus said:

Dec 5, 2013 19:00:02 GMT -5 @fishfan said:

Doubt stability is an issue. This isnt a giraffe we're talking about. Elephant legs are tall but they are built for stability, like pillars. And as I said in other threads, as strong as the beak may be, it wold have a hard time getting a good grip on a similarly sized opponent especially one as tall and built as an elephant. No opinion of this match, though.

Err, with longer legs and less stability, you're more susceptible to getting knocked down. And someone did bring this up elsewhere, just replace a rhino with a Trike and a forest elephant with a bush elephant, as I think it sort of fits this situation as well.

And if these two clash the mass and acceleration of the white rhinoceros plus it's greater stability times the mass and acceleration of the elephant which is rather unstable in running for a distance. Would result either in a gore to the elephant's chest even possibly throat or the elephant falling do to the fact that it's less stable on it's legs.

So yeah, it kind of is an issue.

Forget the beak part, as I realized it won't work anywhere (save perhaps the trunk).

This is still a rather close fight.

Longer legs doesnt automatically equal less stable, or at least less stable to make much of a difference. Elephants use graviportal locomotion. The incredibly thick legs and flat feet provide them with the ability to handle great stress. Combined with a powerful body, I doubt it will prove much more unstable that it makes a difference here.

And elephants dont really charge head on like that, they get close to other animals and then push and attempt to trample them. Elephants may even use there powerful and flexible trunks to hold or push other animals. Maybe the elephant can also use its trunk as a way of holding back a charging animal and lessening any impact?

[Carcharadontosaurus]

How is this a close fight? Trike is much bigger and its horns are much better weapons than those tusks. I can't see how the elephant could cause any serious damage without getting severely stabbed and incapacitated.

[Dinopithecus]

Longer legs->higher center of gravity->farther from ground->more susceptible to getting knocked down, probably even if elephants have special adaptations to increasing stability.

[Liopleurodon]

Let's not forget about our friend, natural selection.
Triceratops thrived in the late Cretaceous in what is now western-central North America. Which means it coexisted with one of the most fearsome land-based carnivores of all time- Tyrannosaurus Rex (beaten only by certain other carnivorous dinosaurs). Triceratops is built to defend itself against giant carnivores like T. Rex (which had the strongest bite of any land carnivore, estimated at around 12,000 p/si), because the traits that allowed its ancestors to survive against similar giant carnivores would have been passed on. There are definetely no carnivores in Africa that even come close to a T. Rex (the bite force of a lion is only 600 p/si, and a Nile Crocodile has a bite force of 5000 p/si, however, I doubt a crocodile is an elephant hunter), which would lead me to infer that Triceratops would be much better at defending itself from attack. Even without the inference, Triceratops has the defensive frill, the forward-pointing horns and a slight weight advantage.

[Dinopithecus]

One more thing, never once did I suggest that the ceratopsian's gape would go around the whole girth of the elephant, I imagined it would be used like a carnosaur biting a much larger sauropod, causing massive lacerations.

Triceratops still wins IMO.

[Godzillasaurus]

The thing is, triceratops would not need to use its beak to attack; that would actually have been more effective in crippling considerably smaller and more gracile animals (such as predators like nanotyrannus or deinonychus for example). Triceratops would only need to utilize its brow horns in this case, as it would have perfect leverage to attack the mammal head-on without having its dorsum or flanks damaged (its horns were anchored by its strong frill, which is partly the reason why they evolved to be used for deep head-on penetration).

[Dinopithecus]

deinonychus

Whom it did not coexist with.

Nor did I suggest the beak will be used as oftenly as the horns. I merely suggested it could be used as a bit of a spare weapon.