Vegetarian stegosaurus was a ferocious fighter who could kill with its tail

The stegosaurus was not the slow-witted creature previously thought, but a ferocious fighter capable of killing even predatory dinosaurs, according to new research. Paleontologists have uncovered new evidence of a casualty of stegosaurian combat. The evidence was a fatal stab wound in the pubis bone of a predatory allosaur. The wound, in the conical shape of a stegosaur tail spike, would have required great dexterity to inflict and shows clear signs of having cut short the allosaur’s life.

They have no locking joints, even in the tail. Most dinosaur tails get stiffer towards the end.

Houston Museum of Natural Science paleontologist Robert Bakker

The wound inflicted by a powerful stegosaur tail would have been similar to those seen in goring accidents during bull runs. To inflict a fatal wound, the stegosaur would need great flexibility and strength in its tail. Bakker believes that the joints of a stegosaur tail had the suppleness and looked like a monkey’s tail. Previously, paleontologists thought the spiky tail was purely for decoration, but in 2005, researchers reported that a non-fatal wound found in the fossil of an allosaur, was most likely inflicted by a stegosaur tail. A report in the Smithsonian.com concluded that the tail with four long spikes would most likely slash open wounds if an attacking animal was standing parallel to the stegosaurus.

Science