[Adam Khor]

This study compares the neck of Carnotaurus to that of Majungasaurus. According to them, Carnotaurus had a much more robust and less S-shaped neck than Majungasaurus.
What bothers me is that they suggest carnotaurines were "scavengers", which doesn´t fit with the recent studies that indicate speed adaptations in Carnotaurus at least. And isn´t it a mistake to begin with, trying to separate "scavengers" and "predators", especially when it comes to such large animals?
If it can hunt, it can certainly scavenge- and even the most devoted scavengers, like vultures, will hunt once in a while...

http://app.pan.pl/archive/published/...110129_acc.pdf

[Galvasean]

Would the more robust neck lend itself better to strangling prey? (as has been suggested elsewhere on this forum)

[Adam Khor]

Perhaps... or perhaps it helped it bring down its prey more easily. If it was, as I believe, sort of a dinosaurian cheetah, it is then lacking one very important cheetah hunting tool, the enlarged dew claw no one talks about:

The cheetah uses this claw to hook its prey at high speed and throw it out of balance. Without this very important "tool", it would be extremely difficult for the cheetah to capture prey. Of course abelisaurus had nothing like this, they barely had arms at all, but what if Carnotaurus' long and robust neck had a similar function, and allowed it to bite down on its prey during the chase and grab/throw its prey out of balance without suffering any injury? As in, a reinforced neck that short-legged, slow moving Majungasaurus wouldn´t need...

[Galvasean]

I can definitely see that working; running down smaller prey, grab it, then fling it causing injury. It also means the Carnotaurus doesn't risk injuring itself in a struggle.
Just looking at that skeleton, I'm actually surprised that so many are content to cast Carnotaurus as a scavenger. You don't evolve sexy catwalk legs like that to amble about waiting for things to keel over and die.