Stegosaur Plates And Spikes For Looks Only

Science Daily ^ | 5/17/05 | University of California - Berkeley - Press Release

[doc30]

science ping?

[pikachu]

Dino bling ping! Stego-fizzle fo' shizzle!

[newgeezer]

Great thinkers at work. (Quiet, please.)

[GSlob]

The bizarre plates and spikes that lined the backbones of the long-extinct stegosaur[us] were probably extreme examples of the often elaborate and colorful displays developed by animals to recognize fellow members of their species...
Well, it explains the genesis and function of punk hairdos.

[Sacajaweau]

Just because you can't see a reason for them being there, doesn't mean there's not a reason. Like most body parts, things exist for protection....Seems like they would protect the body from a bigger predators bite.

[dead]

It makes them more interesting to look at, which makes them more likely to feature in movie dinosaur fights.

[Alouette]

Goth dinosaurs?

[ladtx]

Like most of us old dinosaurs, the spikes are for looks only.

[js1138]

[bkepley]

"Our studies of bone histology are telling us a lot about dinosaur social behavior and lifestyle,"

I bet this will be pretty amusing in 100 years or so.

[QwertyKPH]

Gives new meaning to: "If looks could kill......."

[mlc9852]

How would you tell a female fossil from a male fossil?

[elli1]

My parrots ruffle their feathers as emotional expressions (when they're pissed/ puzzled, etc.)...not unlike when the hair stands up on a dog or cat's back. So it might be that the plates were a communication device?

[brownsfan]

"How would you tell a female fossil from a male fossil?"

One extra bone in the male? :)

[mlc9852]

Maybe - lol. But I am curious. I'm sure scientists know, though. I trust them.

[Sacajaweau]

So you find a bunch of bones here and a bunch of bones there and you find a few chewed pigs bone with each and can conclude what?......The pigs lost??....or they lived in tribal type villages of a kind, hunting chiefly pigs. We didn't find any children dinosaurs so they must have eaten their children when they got real hungry and that is why they are extinct. That seems reasonable to me.

[mlc9852]

LOL - makes sense.

[brownsfan]

"Maybe - lol. But I am curious. I'm sure scientists know, though. I trust them."

I was teasing. Typically there are structural differences around the hips. Even egg laying requires a different structure.

[Modernman]

The team's analysis of stegosaur plates lends support to a growing consensus among paleontologists that the weird adornments of many dinosaurs - the horns of triceratops, the helmet-like domes of the pachycephalosaurs, and the crests of the duck-billed hadrosaurs - likely served no function other than to differentiate species, akin to birds' colorful feather ornamentation.

Maybe I'm missing it, but why wouldn't some of these things serve as defensive features in addition to recognition mechanisms? A triceratops' horns seem like pretty good weapons, for example.