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American Museum of Natural History
Course: American Museum of Natural History > Unit 1
Lesson 2: How do scientists study dinosaurs?- Where in the world did dinosaurs live?
- Where in the world did dinosaurs live?
- Did dinosaurs travel in herds or packs?
- Did dinosaurs travel in herds or packs?
- How fast were dinosaurs?
- Were dinosaurs warm-blooded?
- Were dinosaurs warm-blooded?
- How fast did dinosaurs grow, and how long did they live?
- How fast did dinosaurs grow, and how long did they live?
- What was dinosaur skin like?
- What color were extinct dinosaurs?
- What color were extinct dinosaurs?
- What were the biggest and smallest dinosaurs?
- Did dinosaurs fight?
- How did dinosaurs reproduce?
- How intelligent were dinosaurs?
- New research points to dinosaurs' colorful past
- New dinosaur research: Microraptor's feather color revealed
- Quiz: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
- Exploration Questions: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
- Answers to Exploration Questions: How do scientists study dinosaurs?
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Did dinosaurs fight?
Most vertebrates engage in combat either over territory, mates, or food. It's not surprising that dinosaurs did, too, especially since we can observe combat in the closest living relatives of extinct dinosaurs, crocodiles and birds. One 65-million-year-old skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex discovered in South Dakota has telltale battle scars. One eye socket in the skull is nearly closed by abnormal healing of the surrounding bone. On another part of the skull, the broken tip of a tooth from another tyrannosaur in embedded. Around this tooth are the characteristic marks of bone growth that occurs during healing, indicating that the animal survived the attack. Created by American Museum of Natural History.
Want to join the conversation?
- Would the brontosaurs/apatosaurus have fought like giraffes?(0 votes)
- I can't claim to know, but giraffes have weaponry on their heads, and apatosauruses do not, so that makes me think they did not fight in the same way.(4 votes)
- Who would win?Giganotosaurus,Spinosaurus Tyrannotitan,Sinotyrannus,Mapusaurus or Carcharodontosaurus.(2 votes)
- I imagine it would be Giganotosaurus or Carcharodontosaurus, definitely not Sino or Spinosaurus(3 votes)
- did dinosaurs cry like humans or dogs(1 vote)
- We will never know, because we don't have any Dinosaurs left alive on this planet.(1 vote)
Video transcript
When we say fighting, there's different kinds of
fighting, like one is just carnivory, a wolf goes and attacks a deer,
the deer is gonna fight back, so that's not really fighting. I think when we say fighting we mean
more sort of conspecific fighting, you know that, geting into fights with members of your own species, and usually thats over territory mates and food and that kind of thing. We have a little bit of evidence of that
certainly that some of the big carnivorous dinosaurs, like
Tyrannosaurus Rex on occasion have been found with bite marks on their faces
that have healed from other Tyrannosaurus specimens.