Cows equipped with thagomizers would have to give up the habit of swatting flies with their tails. :)
jrkrideausays
Having been slapped in the face by a cow’s tail I am must as glad they are not thagomizers.
kescisays
Bull riders would be wise to wear protective gear.
robrosays
Where have all the thagomizers gone, long time passing
Where have all the thagomizers gone, long time ago
Where have all the thagomizers gone, gone to fossils everyone
When will we ever learn, When will we ev…er learn
I couldn’t resist. Perhaps I’ll relearn the original and sing the revised version at a jam session.
microraptorsays
In the instance of Doedicurus, one of the largest species of glyptodonts, it combined the bone club of the Ankylosaurs with the spikes of the Stegosaurs.
Unfortunately, the high, rigid bony shell that protected Doedicurus also would have limited its field of vision, making it unlikely that it could have actively used its thagomizer to defend itself from predators. Damage to the armor shells appears consistent with impacts from the thagomizer, indicating that it was probably for intraspecies competition.
microraptorsays
Also, I didn’t know that aardvarks would defend themselves by swinging their tails at attackers, I thought they primarily used their claws.
Kangaroos actually have large tendons stiffening their tail. To defend themselves they grab their attacker with their arms and use the tail as a brace while they bring their hind legs up to kick and disembowel the attacker. They can inflict some serious damage on a human
Scott Simmonssays
Ah, yes. My family has a long history of involvement in dangerous science.
My father once did a research study of the effectiveness of homework volume on learning in middle school students. I’d have stuck with studying large herbivore defensive weaponry, myself. But we Simmons’ are a hardy breed.
Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Ysays
My father once did a research study of the effectiveness of homework volume on learning in middle school students.
J-curve with one inflection point? Or more?
rietpluimsays
Do thagomizers have to be bony? Would it be possible for an animal to have a thagomizer made of keratin, like the horn of a rhinoceros?
Damn you Robro!
I was gonna comment that: may you wake up with a severed thagomizer in your bed!!!
:-)
billmcdsays
. . . ‘beefing up’ the tails of armored cows?
oh, the pun, the pun…
busterggisays
There was a late Cretaceous line of enantiornithes that had thagomizers but they all starved to death because their tails were so heavy that they couldn’t move.
Have you ever found yourself in the way of the tail of an over excited Labrador?
Knabbsays
As far as tail weapons go there’s always scorpions. They’re smaller, but their stingers are at least as respectable for their size as ankylosaurs and their ilk.
Rich Woodssays
Where have all the thagomizers gone?
They were made redundant when the employment of dexitrobopers became fashionable.
mikehubensays
You left out the marine thagomizers of thresher sharks.
nomdeplumesays
PZ the business about length of tail, bony plates etc as necessary conditions, is a bit misleading. A species wouldn’t have those features in order to have a lump on the end of the tail, rather it would have a lump on the end of the tail (and therefore those features) if defending itself with its tail made ecological/behavioural sense. That is, if you are adapting to predators that hunt from behind by chasing, then tail defence might make sense, but with other predators (eg ambush ones) it wouldn’t. Similarly, competing for a mate depends on all kinds of behaviour patterns, some of which might fit with the tail as a weapon, others wouldn’t. There is a lot of energy investment in a big bony lump on a tail, and that investment only gets made if the result is superior adaptively to, say, a horn on the head.
Does the tail spike of a stringray count as a thagomizer? Or are venom delivery mechanisms a different category altogether from simple piercing / bludgeoning tail weapons?
How do we know that they were “weapons?”
They may well have been used in courtship displays.
We do have one fossil allosaur with a damaged vertebra — it has a notch punched into it the same size as the tip of a stegosaur spike.
Interesting.
(Also, I’ve incorporated the term into my lexicon. I like it.)
Cows equipped with thagomizers would have to give up the habit of swatting flies with their tails. :)
Having been slapped in the face by a cow’s tail I am must as glad they are not thagomizers.
Bull riders would be wise to wear protective gear.
Where have all the thagomizers gone, long time passing
Where have all the thagomizers gone, long time ago
Where have all the thagomizers gone, gone to fossils everyone
When will we ever learn, When will we ev…er learn
I couldn’t resist. Perhaps I’ll relearn the original and sing the revised version at a jam session.
In the instance of Doedicurus, one of the largest species of glyptodonts, it combined the bone club of the Ankylosaurs with the spikes of the Stegosaurs.
Unfortunately, the high, rigid bony shell that protected Doedicurus also would have limited its field of vision, making it unlikely that it could have actively used its thagomizer to defend itself from predators. Damage to the armor shells appears consistent with impacts from the thagomizer, indicating that it was probably for intraspecies competition.
Also, I didn’t know that aardvarks would defend themselves by swinging their tails at attackers, I thought they primarily used their claws.
A kangaroo with a thagomiser on it’s muscly tail would be a fearsome creature. Anyone doing a startup on that?
Don’t mourn the loss of thagomizers. Technology has come to the rescue. Not sure you would want one for your cat from hell though. http://www.beautifullife.info/art-works/armour-for-cats-and-mice-created-by-jeff-de-boer/
Kangaroos actually have large tendons stiffening their tail. To defend themselves they grab their attacker with their arms and use the tail as a brace while they bring their hind legs up to kick and disembowel the attacker. They can inflict some serious damage on a human
Ah, yes. My family has a long history of involvement in dangerous science.
My father once did a research study of the effectiveness of homework volume on learning in middle school students. I’d have stuck with studying large herbivore defensive weaponry, myself. But we Simmons’ are a hardy breed.
J-curve with one inflection point? Or more?
Do thagomizers have to be bony? Would it be possible for an animal to have a thagomizer made of keratin, like the horn of a rhinoceros?
Damn you Robro!
I was gonna comment that: may you wake up with a severed thagomizer in your bed!!!
:-)
. . . ‘beefing up’ the tails of armored cows?
oh, the pun, the pun…
There was a late Cretaceous line of enantiornithes that had thagomizers but they all starved to death because their tails were so heavy that they couldn’t move.
Have you ever found yourself in the way of the tail of an over excited Labrador?
As far as tail weapons go there’s always scorpions. They’re smaller, but their stingers are at least as respectable for their size as ankylosaurs and their ilk.
They were made redundant when the employment of dexitrobopers became fashionable.
You left out the marine thagomizers of thresher sharks.
PZ the business about length of tail, bony plates etc as necessary conditions, is a bit misleading. A species wouldn’t have those features in order to have a lump on the end of the tail, rather it would have a lump on the end of the tail (and therefore those features) if defending itself with its tail made ecological/behavioural sense. That is, if you are adapting to predators that hunt from behind by chasing, then tail defence might make sense, but with other predators (eg ambush ones) it wouldn’t. Similarly, competing for a mate depends on all kinds of behaviour patterns, some of which might fit with the tail as a weapon, others wouldn’t. There is a lot of energy investment in a big bony lump on a tail, and that investment only gets made if the result is superior adaptively to, say, a horn on the head.
Does the tail spike of a stringray count as a thagomizer? Or are venom delivery mechanisms a different category altogether from simple piercing / bludgeoning tail weapons?
The joy of the coming robot revolution is that all of them can be fitted with thagomizers.
“It’s become an accepted, informal term …”
you people are weird