Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
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I'm puzzled why you think the horns point at the snout, instead of up, like they do in cattle and pretty much every other species with poky horns? Sheep's horns don't, because they aren't poky; instead they spiral around to form a helmet.
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Note that on the cape buffalo the horns don't just stick out. Their roots also grow together to form a brow ridge. That would also be armor and/or a striking surface.
I'm pretty sure that rodeo types would rate being trampled as a bigger danger than being gored too.
I believe that sharp horns are mostly used as a defensive threat. It almost certainly helps that bringing them into play involves putting the head low to help cover the throat.
There aren't any horned carnivores of course.
Then there's the gorilla as our other model. It does and any other knuckle walker would have arms as long and as strong as legs if not more so. That makes them formidable grappling weapons. I think that's what the gorilla mainly uses even though its' teeth can bite with over 1200 lbs of force and its' sagittal crest would give it a formidable head butt.
For these reasons and what Bruno said (correctly) about horns I think the concept of offensive horns has gone astray.