Dome-headed dinosaurs did more than just butt heads
Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 08:01
in Paleontology & Archaeology
We have all seen nature shows with footage of bighorn sheep rearing up and "butting heads" with each other using their heads and enlarged horns. People often assume other animals with horns and comparable head structures have similar behaviors. For a long time this was the case for the dome-headed dinosaurs, the pachycephalosaurids (pack-y-sef-a-lo-sore-ids), who were thought to use their thick, domed skulls in fights and mating displays. But new research presented at the recent Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meetings shows that, as is often the case with animal behaviors, the situation is more complex for both living horned animals and the extinct dinosaurs.