While we don't have much 'smoking-gun-style' evidence of dinosaurs' horns and spikes being used as weapons, there are some signs in the fossil record that suggest they may have been used as such - particularly in the case of Stegosaurus.
This famous plant-eating dinosaur from the Jurassic Period had a long, muscular tail tipped with four, metre-long spikes. There are remains of Allosaurus, a predator of Stegosaurus, that display puncture marks that look suspiciously like those that may have been inflicted by a crude, bony spike.
These punctured remains include a healed tail vertebrae, which suggests the Allosaurus in question survived its encounter with a Stegosaurus, and a pubic bone from another individual that shows evidence of later infection - a sign that this particular Allosaurus may have not been so lucky and later died from a condition such as sepsis."
This may suggest that Stegosaurus weaponised its tail spikes, but it doesn't mean that Triceratops necessarily used its horns to gouge chunks out of T.rex, or that Iguanodon used its thumb spike à la Bruce Lee to deliver a deadly, one-inch punch to the neck of Gigantosaurus.
To determine whether or not these dinosaurs used their horns, spikes, or clubs as weapons, researchers use a three-pronged approach when it comes to evidence analysis.
This involves the horns, thumb-spikes and clubbed tails of dinosaurs such as Triceratops, Iguanodon and Ankylosaurus certainly look like weapons, yet they could have evolved for other purposes, such as feeding, mating, recognition aids or display.
No one knows for sure, and inferring behaviour from fossils is risky. "It's great to say that a pointy bone was a weapon, but until you can find physical evidence of its use as such, it's speculative," says Andrew Farke.
A three-pronged approach to evidence analysis may yield some answers, however.
This involves comparing dino 'weapons to structures found in modern animals; assessing their function biomechanical simulators; and carrying out fossil path to determine whether broken bones or correspond to injuries inflicted by pari structures. The case for combat is strong when all three coincide.
- What were the fastest dinosaurs – and just how fast were they? Meet 10 prehistoric speed machines
- Many prehistoric animals – especially dinosaurs – were absolutely enormous. A scientist explains why they were so darn big
- The 10 deadliest dinosaurs to have ever roamed the Earth: we rate these ultimate killing machines
Main image: Stegosaurus © Getty
