RE: Pachycephalosaurs & head-butting

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

On Wed, 2 Apr 2008, Brian Baziak wrote:
> All that the finite element analysis can show is that the shape of the 
> sub adult skull was a good shape for dispersing the force of a blow. It 
> ignores the histological evidence, as well as the difficulty in head 
> butting with two round objects. What is more parsimonious, that they 
> head butted during one point of their life and then mated for life, or 
> that they never head butted at all, and the dome that they develop 
> through their lives is a display structure used only for species 
> recognition and to look sexy to other pachycephalosaurs.

The wiki page (cough cough) states

 However, in no known dinosaur can the head, neck, and body be oriented
 in such a position. Instead, the cervical and anterior dorsal vertebrae
 of pachycephalosaurs show that the neck was carried in an "S"- or
 "U"-shaped curve.

giving

Carpenter, Kenneth (1997). "Agonistic behavior in pachycephalosaurs 
(Ornithischia:Dinosauria): a new look at head-butting behavior" (pdf). 
Contributions to Geology 32 (1): 19-25.

as a reference. Perhaps head butting was done in defense, against (softer)
sides of bodies...