Foxhound Hunt of the Triassic -
A unorganized gang of Coelophysis bauri hunt down a lone Trilophosaurus buettneri, a distant North American relative of the double-horned archosauromorph Sheingasaurus, across a shallow river in what is now the Chine Formation of the American southwest as a Desmatosuchus drinks and a Postosuchus passes by in the background. Coelophysis possessed many anatomical adaptations for fast-pursuit hunting, such as stereoscopic vision, tall leg bones and a long tail which acted as a counterbalance when the dinosaur ran, and its highly serrated teeth enabled it to make short work of captured prey items. And although its social behaviour certainyl did not look like those of canids as with most other theropods, the finds at the Ghost Ranch fossil site in New Mexico, which records a large mob of Coelophysis of all ages getting killed by a catastrophic flash flood, indicate that it is possible for otherwise solitary individuals of this basal theropod may have joined forces from time to time in order to take down potentially larger, more dangerous prey animals, in a similar manner to present-day scenarios of a pack of hounds chasing a deer, fox, rabbit or a wild boar, and rip them apart in feeding frenzies that are similar to those of crocodiles, Komodo dragons or vultures, not to mention the strong parental bonds that Coelophysis parents may have had with their offspring. So Coelophysis was capable of occasionally forming small, loose congregations, whether they be families, creches of variously-aged individuals, or hungry/thirsty adults, to hunt down certain prey animals or to gather around any prey-abundant water hole areas during the dry season, but was nevertheless a usually solitary animal like most other diapsids.
