Comments on: Fossil Testifies to Pachycephalosaur Pain

By: Herman Diaz

Herman Diaz — Wed, 09 May 2012 03:53:34 +0000

To add to what James A. Coe said, see this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huxDnZs2_OQ&feature=plcp

By: James A. Coe

James A. Coe — Mon, 07 May 2012 01:31:34 +0000

From the discription of damage to skull of a Pachycephalosaurus, and seeing an intact undamaged one, it leads one to assume they probably used them in the fashion
that giraffes do when fighting.

By: Zach Miller

Zach Miller — Fri, 04 May 2012 17:58:00 +0000

Well, butting ribcages or flanks wouldn’t produce quite the same bone-on-bone kind of ramming injury. There’s going to be some give (and the target probably isn’t running directly toward you) with those areas.

But head-on-head collisions are the result of two animals running (possibly full-bore) at each other and smashing their skulls together. There’s gonna be some damage!

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 04 May 2012 01:51:32 +0000

@220mya: I guess it’s possible, but unlikely. It would take a lot of force to cause depressions like that (remeber, this damage is to the bone, which scientists think was covered with keratin). For the hindlimbs or ribs to cause these injuries, the force required would have probably destroyed them. Plus the paper shows a similar injury on the skull of a bird who crashed into a window, which suggests that the pachy skull hit something really hard as well. But that’s just my take.

@Peteykins: Pachycephalosaurus are pretty small dinosaurs. Check out the Stegoceras mounts at the Tyrrell Museum They are about the size of my 45 lb Border collie/ Australian shepherd. Pachy may be the biggest of the bunch, but when you look at the group as a whole, that’s not saying much…

By: Peteykins

Peteykins — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:26:29 +0000

Are those really Pachycephalosaurus mounts in that photo, or something else from the Pachy family, like Stygimoloch? They look rather small to be Pachycephalosaurus proper.

By: 220mya

220mya — Thu, 03 May 2012 16:12:38 +0000

I guess I don’t understand why this helps at all out with distinguishing between butting heads and ramming into other parts of the body. Why couldn’t these injuries be from ramming the head into a hindlimb, ribcage, etc?