The Truth About Killer Dinosaurs Page #7

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and they like to work

as a family group so therefore

they are ideal in the hunting field

because they'll actually work as a team.

So it's nice to have a variety of birds here,

males and females, immatures and adults,

all raring to get going to get out

into the hunting field.

These are tame birds

but they're not trained birds -

they're displaying their natural hunting method

which is not to go out on their own looking

for prey for each one, but in groups.

Three birds stand a much better chance

of catching one prey - in this case a rabbit.

What we're doing is we're working this wood

and we've got one female...

that's gone right up front...

she's the more experienced one.

and we've got... back in this area...

and we always end up when we're working

with a group of birds like this

that we end up with a backstop

The backstop stays behind in case the rabbit

decides to double back on itself.

Go on hawk

In goes the first bird.

There is...

The second flies in to cut off the rabbit.

Go on...

And they've got it.

So co-operative hunting pays off for Harris Hawks

and perhaps also paid off

for some predatory dinosaurs.

Working together, the turkey-sized Velociraptors

would have had a much better chance of bringing

down one, rather sturdy, Protoceratops.

And there is fossil evidence that suggests

that they did just this.

In the 1960, s, palaeontologists were digging

in the side of a hill in Montana USA

when they found the remains of 4 raptors,

lying alongside their victim.

The evidence was undeniable.

These raptors were hunting together.

In prehistoric Mongolia, a Velociraptor gets

into position up on the high ground.

While a second one sets off down

onto the low ground.

And they're off.

Velociraptor most certainly lived up

to its billing:

a ruthless hunter and a vicious killer

It might not have been six foot tall,

and it couldn't actually disembowel its victims.

But Velociraptor could most certainly use its

sickle shaped claw as a lethal killing weapon.

a whole pack of these ravenous predators could

attack and kill whatever they wanted to eat?

Or could they?

The biggest potential meal for Velociraptor

that lived out on the desert was

one of these - an Ankylosaur.

This huge dinosaur was a vegetarian

with a very small brain.

Surely this docile, and probably dozey,

animal was destined to be made mincemeat

of by a hungry Velociraptor?

Or perhaps it could look after itself.

The tail is suspiciously lumpy

and the animal is covered in thick armour.

So what would have happened if a gang of

Velociraptors set out to attack an Ankylosaur...

This is a question that's been

intriguing Ken Carpenter.

Ken is curator of the Denver Museum,

USA and a world expert on Ankylosaurs.

I like Ankylosaurs because they are so different

among dinosaurs - they have very low,

squat bodies - in one sense they are almost

built like me so I can kind of relate to them.

They probably had a short temper,

they weren't very bright,

but they were plant eaters and

so they might have been rather gentle animals.

Gentle animals maybe - but what about that tail?

The bulbous club on the end looks like a weapon -

and palaeontologists

have often described it as a weapon

but did it really pose a threat to Velociraptor?

It's time for another dinosaur experiment.

The special effects team embark

on a new challenge -

to build a fully working,

replica tail from aluminium.

To date fossil hunters have

only found 8 Ankylosaur tails.

But Ken has tracked down a cast of one of them

so that he can advise the team.

The tail has two parts: the flexible bendy bit

and the solid club on the end.

This is the tail club,

this is the business end of an ankylosaur.

It's made by vertebrae which are fused

together to form a handle -

the true working end are these plates of armour

that are fused together -

forms almost a battle axe.

When Ken takes a really close look at the

fossil cast, he makes an amazing new discovery.

We're very fortunate with this,

something that we've never seen

before is the damage

that occurred on this tail club

where the bone had broken off

and that could only have happened

if the tail club had hit something really hard.

It hit with such force

that the bone just popped off here.

It didn't only do it once

but it did it twice which suggests

that the animal had struck something

really hard in both directions...

This provides us with the best evidence

that this was indeed used as a weapon.

If this is a weapon,

what kind of damage could it inflict?

And what would it do to a Velociraptor?

Back in London the special effects team sets

about building a replica aluminium tail.

This has an equivalent weight

and the same strength as the original tail.

Before they can test it,

they need to know exactly how much force

an Ankylosaur could put behind its tail swing.

While the team are busy building

their scale model in the UK,

Ken is busy in the US - doing maths.

Here in front of me I have the tail

that we used in our analysis.

We have all these structures on the side and along

the bottom - this is where the muscles attach.

So we could determine the volume

of muscle all around the tail.

And from that volume we could

then calculate the amount of force

that the tail club could generate

and it turned out it

the tail club could generate about

two and a half tons per square inch

which is about the weight of a car on a very,

very small area.

You can imagine a predator coming nearby

and Ankylosaur swinging this club -

its going to do a lot of damage

if it hit a vital area.

Two and a half tons is an awful lot of pressure

on a small spot on any carnivorous dinosaur.

Up until now,

scientists could only guess as to

what kind of damage the club-shaped

Ankylosaur tail could inflict.

But with Ken's calculations and

the special effects team's replica tail,

they are finally able to put a 75 million year

old weapon of war through its paces.

Ken has flown to London

to witness the experiment.

Here's our tail, what do you think?

Wow this is marvellous -

looks just like the real thing.

We're pretty pleased with it

Its very impressive.

So how much force did you calculate for this.

Two tons a square inch, like your figures.

OK so that's about the weight of a large

American car on a pretty small area.

a pretty large car.

Explain to me how this thing works?

OK, we pull it back...

and lock it into this release mechanism here

and then when we release the tail

the weight falls,

pulls the tail round and applies the force

to whatever we're going to hit.

Well let's see this thing work...

Great, that's marvellous,

just like the real thing!

With the tail working exactly as they planned,

Ken and the team are about to find out

what kind of damage

an Ankylosaur tail could have inflicted

on an attacker.

The target is set in place -

yet another piece of butcher's pork.

This rib cage is designed to be strong enough

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