Head-butting is a form of male-to-male competition for access to females, said Dr. Jessica Theodor, co-author and associate professor in the biological sciences department at the University of Calgary. “It’s pretty clear that although the bones are arranged differently in the Stegoceras, it could easily withstand the kinds of forces that have been measured for the living animals that engage in head-butting.”
Most head-butting animals have domes like a good motorcycle helmet. “They have a stiff rind on the outside with a sort of a spongy energy absorbing material just beneath it and then a stiff, really dense coat over the brain,” said Snively.
The Stegoceras had an extra layer of dense bone in the middle. Stegoceras was a small pachycephalosaur about the size of a German shepherd, and lived about 72 million years ago.
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Stegoceras skull-
photograph by Barnum Brown
Head-butting is a form of male-to-male competition for access to females, said Dr. Jessica Theodor, co-author and associate professor in the biological sciences department at the University of Calgary. “It’s pretty clear that although the bones are arranged differently in the Stegoceras, it could easily withstand the kinds of forces that have been measured for the living animals that engage in head-butting.”
Most head-butting animals have domes like a good motorcycle helmet. “They have a stiff rind on the outside with a sort of a spongy energy absorbing material just beneath it and then a stiff, really dense coat over the brain,” said Snively.
The Stegoceras had an extra layer of dense bone in the middle. Stegoceras was a small pachycephalosaur about the size of a German shepherd, and lived about 72 million years ago.
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