I've been wondering about this too. It seems that perhaps we have a species of even less controllable tempers than threehorns. Nevertheless there seem to be well behaved Pachycepholosaurus in the Great Valley. At the end of LBT 6 you see a Pachycephalosaurus hatchling among the kids listening to the story of Littlefoot and the others. Pachycephalosaurus are also mentioned in a book of the original movie in a scene which never made it into the movie. In that scene they come across as racist and egoistic, guarding a copse of green trees against anyond of a different species, but not more so than other species (next to the trees in that scene is a waterhole guarded by Ducky's kinfold).
The creators of LBT probably meant to come up with a dangerous dinosaur without sharp teeth for a change. Maybe there are some "nuts" among the LBT dinosaurs and so far we have sen only Pachycepholosaurus representatives of that kind of temper.

I never thought they were portrayed as carnivores; just overly vicious. After all, some herbivores today can act very hostile. Bull hippos, water buffalos, male elephants in musk, and rhinos just to name some.

I don't think the pachys were going to eat Cera, and sharp teeth don't always mean carnivore. Look at gorillas; they've got sharp canines but they're herbivores.

I think the pachys in LBT were portrayed as very protective of their territory, and would defend it against any intruder, even another herbivore.

Even if the Domeheads (as the LBT dinosaurs would probably call them) were not going to eat Cera in the original movie, it still didn't look like they intended to let Cera get away with her life.

Ah yes, hippos can be like this too. If humans or crocs stray into their territory, they will kill them if they don't get out fast. Same goes for bull elephants in musk; during this part of their life, they are highly destructive and will kill almost anyone in their path if given the chance. The only thing they won't kill is a female elephant.

In any case, they were a nice change from the docile natures a lot of people seem to portray all herbivores to be.

Indeed
It is one of the few cases in which the "villains" behaviour is not based on the desire to eat the main character (or so we must presume. Who knows how far hunger might drive the herbivores...  :unsure: I better stop short of canibalist, gory details ); Pterano, Rinkus, and Sierra would be the only other example we know from the movies (unless you count the bullies whose villainy is on another level than that of the other villains though).

I agree that their territory was a bit of an odd choice, but I do remember Pachys being a species prone to living on mountain tops, so I guess the volcano was the closest thing to fit their needs.

I think most Pachy fossils have been found near the Rocky Mountains, and the Rocky Mountains came into existence to the Cretaceous with the Pachys living at the end of that period. Still mountains by itself don't provide a living for any herbivore. What would those Pachys live on in that plantforsaken mountains? (Don't think of canibalist, gory details  :unsure:).

I would have liked to know how Cera ran into them, too...then again I wished the movie had been a bit longer...but that book sounds interesting. Does it have any pictures that weren't from the film?

Yes, the book is illustrated with very beautiful pictures. They are not any shots from the movie, but painted. While making a very nice change from some other books using only movie shots this also means that none of the pictures from scenes not shown in the movie proves anything about whether or not such a scene was actually made but not included in the final cut.

About the eggeaters in LBT 4, I think they were running away from a Sharptooth, or...or was that something in the opening animation? Gah, I need to watch that movie again...I think there were two times when eggeaters were fleeing from something in that movie, and a Pachy is highly possible.

There was no shartptooth in that eggeater scene within the land of mists. In fact the behaviour of the eggeaters struck me as rather odd. Just running to jump into the river and being washed away; I had to think of the alleged behaviour of lemmings (they don't commit collective suicide by leaping down into the sea from cliffs as suggested in a Disney movie in which such scenes were staged cementing the false idea of lemming suicidal behaviour into peoples' minds). Another remarkable point about the eggeaters in LBT 4 is that the first two look exactly like Ozzy and Strut from LBT 2. I wonder if it was actually meant to be a guest appearance, which would make it the only ever guestappearance from an earlier movie's character in an LBT movie by Roy Alan Smith.
Thanks for starting this thread Ratiasu I don't think there has ever been a real discussion of the LBT domeheads (who are by the way refered to as "lizardheads" in several English LBT books).

Actually it is an interesting question how vicious Hyp, Nod, and Mutt would have become if given the chance. What in case they had caught Littlefoot, Cera, Petrie, Ducky, Spike, or just one of them after the discovery of the waterhole. What would / could they have done anyway? How far would they have gone?
There is one land before time book and an audio play in which they capture Spike apparently for the mere sake of tyrannizing him and his friends. Other than preventing him from getting away neither the audio play nor the book give any details on what they actually wanted to do. In the audio play the image is created that they put Spike in a small ravine with only one exit and laid to rest at that only exit. A picture of the book sugests that they tied Spike with a vine.

As for Pterano, Rinkus, and Sierra they would have harmed others. They were just lacking the proper device to do so, but never ever got it. The main difference is that while Pterano thought his becoming the undisputed leader of the dinosaurs (by whatever means) would be beneficial for everyone Rinkus and Sierra only thought of their own advantage. While we cannot be sure what exactly they had in mind we may get a vague idea of Sierra's planning to feed the kids to the sharpteeth.

As for Pachys living on the mountains, they might have used the horns on their snouts to dig for roots. I always thought they were omnivorous - eating insects sometimes, you know...

I seriously doubt the Pachys in LBT were meant to stay where they were. With nothing growing around there wouldn't be many roots for them to dig up either, least of all in the mostly rocky terrain. It would also take a huge pile of insects to feed them. No, I really don't think those Pachys were meant to live where Cera encountered them. But perhaps the Pachy consider any place where they are "their territory", no matter how long they have been there or how long they are going to stay. So even if they didn't live where Cera encountered them, defending "their territory" may still have been a reason for their aggressiveness. Maybe Cera really bumped into a sleeping Pachy as suggested by one book. Any way, they were clearly overreacting  

I think a Pachy pushed through the bushes next to Littlefoot just afterwards, but I haven't seen that movie in a while....as for the Struthios looking alike, that's a bit granted. I mean, they are the same species, you know.

Probably. Ozzy and Struth had distinct yellow respectively orange eyes (one of the points to keep them appart), the Struthiomimuses in that scene may have had both colors too. Anyway, as there was no real action or recognition on the part of the Struthiomimuses I guess it is very unlikely that Ozzy and Strut were among them. If they were it apparently didn't make any difference at all.
As for Mr. Thicknose I need to rake my memory. I think (I have no 100% faith in my memory about this point) the information on a return of Mr. Thicknose came straight from Aria, which would make it more than a rumor. I'm not absolutely certain...
Okay, now I am. I checked out my old emails. In a mail of april 9th 2006 Aria wrote:

DORIAN PLAYS  A RECURRING CHARACTER, "MR. THICKNOSE" ON THE SERIES!

So I'm afraid whether you like him or not Mr. Thicknose will recur in the series
Maybe he'll do better this time.

There are quite a few LBT books actually... Well, I suppose LBT coloring books are not what we are talking about, which gets the number down a bit.
The book by Jim Razzi is certainly the most elaborate and beautiful English adaptation of the original movie. The illustrationsin this book are by David Kirschner and Beverly Lazor-Bahr.
Around the same time as Razzi's book (that is the time the movie was in the cinemas) two other books were published. I think there were soft and hardcover versions of both of them, though I have the hardcover version of only one of them. The content is the same though. The books are titled "Friends in Need" and "The Search for the Great Valley". Both of them tell parts of the original movies story, but are not exactly complete. "Friends in Need" ends after Littlefoot and the others saved Cera from the Pachys. The reunion, the fight with the Sharptooth, and the reaching of the Great Valley are not included. In case of the Search for the Great Valley (which is by no means a sequel or prequel to "Friends in Need") the story ends with Littlefoot finding the Great Valley but turning back to lead the others there. Both books tell the original concept of the story according to which Littlefoot found the Great Valley BEFORE he returned to save Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike. In spite of their incompleteness the text of these books is more elaborate than in some later adaptations. They are illustrated with screenshots from the movie. Interestingly there are a few pictures of scenes which were cut from the movie later on.
Another 1988 book is more aimed at young children and is titled "Littlefoot's New Friends". It is made of solid carton rather than paper (thereby setting the pattern for at least five more land before time books with no direct reference to the movies which were published in later years). The text in this book is very short and simple, but the illustrations are also made by Mr. Kirschner and Mr. Lazor-Bahr and they look really beautiful. They didn't reuse the pictures for the Jim Razzi book. The story of the book is cut short to say the least. It is mainly Littlefoot meeting Cera, getting separated by the earthquake (sharptooth and the death of Littlefoot's mother are never even mentioned), meeting, Ducky, meeting Petrie, finding Spike, finding the Great Valley, and that's it.
A 1999 land before time book by Molly Goode tells the whole story of the original movie in rhymes. The book is clearly aimed at very young kids. It goes like this:

In the land before time
in an age long ago,
a dinosaur hatched...
and started to grow.

Littlefoot was the name
of this dinosaur boy.
His mom was so proud,
for he gave her great joy

Littlefoot's mom
watched as he grew
Grandma and Grandpa
watched over him too.

Well, you get the picture. Critical parts of the story (e.g. the death of Littlefoot's mother and the quarrel with Cera) are very much downplayed as not to provide anything a kid might find scary. The illustrations of the book are not from the movie, but by Beverly Lazor-Bahr. The pictures are however in this "later style" in which all character have knobby knees and Petrie looks like a sick, ancient bat (I wonder if Mr. Lazor-Bahr is the one who invented that "sacrilege".
Another softcover adaptation from the same year has illustrations of Mr. Lazor-Bahr too. They have the same look of the characters, but at least the landscape around the characters looks better. The text is not nearly as elaborate as in the 1988 books, but still slightly above the level of many land before time books with no direct reverence to the original movie which tell stories in really exteremely short and simple sentences. This book sticks to the movie's version of the Great Valley discovery.
Apart from these there is a respectable number of land before time books not directly related to the first movie, or any of the movies at that.
In Germany there are four different books on the original story plus a translation of "Friends in need". I will never forgive the translators of that book that they actually did translate Littlefoot's name (which is not done in any other book and certainly not in the movie). I suppose there must have been a translation of "The Search for the Great Valley" too, but I expect the edition was only a few hundred or thousand books, so they are extremely rare...
I'm not sure if those German books or those not refering to the movie are of any interest to you.

Conplex answer made simple: Cera + Irate Dinosaurs = Disaster.

My take on the Pachys is that they were starving, tired, grumpy, and this is Cera we're also talking about here. We all know she probably said something to antagonize them. Yeah, no matter the cause, they weren't letting her get away with her life until Littlefoot and the others showed up looking like the creature from the black lagoon.

Hmm. I've read some stories where Pachys do actually live in mountains, but I highly doubt that they'd live near raging volcanos.

Hey Malte, do you happen to have a scanner of some kind that will allow us to see the pictures you mentioned in the book?

Conplex answer made simple: Cera + Irate Dinosaurs = Disaster.

Well, we still don't really know what that disaster would have looked like. Disaster for whom anyway?
I don't suppose Hyp, Nod, and Mutt would have caused any "lasting damage" to Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, or Spike; be it for what scruple remained in them in spite of all the bully attitute or be it for fear of the grownups reactions if they really did something.
What did we actually see Hyp and the others commit? Make as if to step on Ducky so she has to run away, showing some teeth and snarling a bit, letting Nod drop on Littlefoot, chasing them. We didn't ever even see Hyp actually hurt anyone physically (as he had announced he would in one scene). Had they actually caught Littlefoot and/or some/all of the others it would have been interesting to see how far they would have gone.
Perhaps the disaster would have been all his if he had caught anyone. It would have been him caught between the need to keep his face in front of Nod and Mutt yet not do anything that would get him in REAL trouble from the grownups.

We all know she probably said something to antagonize them.

I don't even expect she actually said anything (she may have, but not necessarily). I don't think LBT 1 Cera was prone to talk to strangers who were older and stronger than her. I rather expect she accidentally stumbled into those Pachys temporarry resting place. Perhaps she just woke them up, perhaps she didn't even do that. We won't know for sure, but I don't expect it would have taken a great deal of provocation on Cera's part to set those Pachys off.

Hey Malte, do you happen to have a scanner of some kind that will allow us to see the pictures you mentioned in the book?

We do have a scanner, but currently it is providing us with nothing but a chaotic mixture of all colors except for those which actually exist in a picture you try to scan. However, I can try to take a picture with a digital camera and upload it. Don't expect a fancy picture, it is in this "later style" where Petrie looks like a bat.

I was just giving my imput. I never got the impression they were heading for the Great Valley, though.

You may be right. They sure don't seem to be the kind that would assimilate easily into the Great Valley's society. They are not likely to stay amongst all those volcanos either. Perhaps they were just adrift; knowing they couldn't stay where they were but not knowing where to go either. One might even feel some sympathy for them. Maybe with their over irascible nature (exceeding even that of a threehorn) they wouldn't even feel happy in such a peaceful place of the Great Valley. Perhaps that's why there seem to be so few Pachys, perhaps that is why the only really noteable Pachy appearance in the sequels is in the Land of Mists. Perhaps they need to struggle for their life to actually enjoy it, and perhaps I'm just overinterpreting things

There could be two different kinds of behavior for Pachys in LBT. The ones we saw in the original were the only ones we've seen act overly viciously, and who knows what the ones in LBT4 were doing. But, the ones we've seen in the Great Valley don't seem to be any worse off. I guess it could depend on which Pachy group you get.

Its never gone over in the series, but the makers definitely leave it open for grabs.

Mm. Well, I certainly like that picture you photographed, Malte - I've always liked Hyp. Does that book only mention the bullies, or does it go further?