Analysis of an allosaur skeleton (Abstract) shows that it died of a deep wound in the lower pubis - the shape and size of which matches a stegosaurus tail spike (informally, the Thagomizer). As the vertical strike came from below the allosaur, it shows that stegosaurus had great dexterity when using its tail as a defensive weapon.
Stegosaurs might be portrayed as lumbering plant eaters, but they were lethal fighters when necessary, according to paleontologists who have uncovered new evidence of a casualty of stegosaurian combat. The evidence is 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.
“A massive infection ate away a baseball-sized sector of the bone,” reports Houston Museum of Natural Science paleontologist Robert Bakker and his colleagues, who present a poster on the discovery on Tuesday at the meeting of the Geological Society of America in Vancouver, B.C. “Probably this infection spread upwards into the soft tissue attached here, the thigh muscles and adjacent intestines and reproductive organs.” The lack of any signs of healing strongly suggests the allosaur died from the infection.
In order to deliver the mortal wound to the allosaur, a stegosaur would have had to sweep its tail under the allosaur and twist the tail tip, because normally the spikes point outward and backward. That would have been well within the ability of a stegosaur, Bakker said.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Thursday October 23 2014, @08:09AM
Yes, I would be in abject fear of a thagomizer crotch-shot!!!
Where's the youtube thagomizer crotch-shot vid?
;-)
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday October 23 2014, @08:10AM
It's worth noting that the allosaur's last meal was the stegosaurus...
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by monster on Thursday October 23 2014, @04:54PM
Doubtful. After such a wound, the allosaur probably was thinking more like 'AAARGH THAT HURTS!" than "I'm going again to that bxxxx and eat it!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @03:44PM
xXStegaRoxX [HRB]: Get Rekt
ALLthesaurs [pred]: my kd!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 23 2014, @06:02PM
Wrong, because obviously the allosaur was on its side when attacked.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday October 23 2014, @06:50PM
Interesting assertion. I don't believe that your suggestion is implausible, but I also don't note any evidence quoted. Perhaps there are characteristics of the wound that indicate the allosaur was standing when wounded? But also perhaps not, the summary didn't say. If, however, the allosaur was on its side, it was probably only because it had been knocked down. (I can't imagine a stegosaur proactively attacking an allosaur, even in defence of its young...and if it were on its side that seems an unlikely time to be threatening the young of a stegosaur.)
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