Tyrannosaurids didn't use their claws in combat

  Yeonsu High School, Incheon, South Korea
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.980v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Animal Behavior, Ecosystem Science, Paleontology, Zoology, Pathology
Keywords
Pathology, Tyrannosaurid, Claw, Tooth, Tooth mark
Copyright
© 2015 Yun
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Yun C. 2015. Tyrannosaurids didn't use their claws in combat. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e980v1

Abstract

Rothschild (2013) suggested that many of the facial and postcranial scars in tyrannosaurid specimens are in fact caused by claws of the other tyrannosaurids. However, the evidences suggested by Rothschild (2013) are very weak. Tooth marks can have very different shapes with real tooth sections or shapes, and multi-ton giants like tyrannosaurids would have been impossible to kick each others' faces. Also, the very short, range limited tyrannosaurid forelimbs would be impossible to hit the opponents' faces.

Author Comment

This is a personal comment on Rothschild (2013) "Clawing Their Way to the Top: Tyrannosaurid Pathology and Lifestyle".