Re: percentage of_T. horridus_skulls showing healed scars resulting from intraspecific combat?

["Andy Farke" <andyfarke@hotmail.com>]

It's fairly small, I suspect. I know of a total of nine _Triceratops_
specimens with pathologies of some sort or another. This includes horn,
frill, scapula and facial pathologies. However, not necessarily all of these
resulted from combat. *Very speculatively*, I would say that perhaps only
half of these injuries resulted from damage inflicted by other
_Triceratops_.

Some of the more "spectacular" specimens:

SSM P62/1/1 has a pathology on its jugal. This is described in:

Erickson, B. R. 1966. Mounted skeleton of _Triceratops prorsus_ in the
Science Museum. Scientific Publications of the Science Museum 1:1-16.

USNM 4708 possibly has a broken and rounded brow horn. See:

Gilmore, C. W. 1919. A new restoration of _Triceratops_, with notes on the
osteology of the genus. U.S. National Museum Proceedings 55:97-112.

For a summary of ceratopsian pathologies and hypotheses on their origin, I
refer you to:

Rothschild, B. M. and D. Tanke 1998. Thunder in the Cretaceous: Interspecies
conflict as evidence for ceratopsian migration? In: Dinofest International
Proceedings, Wolberg, D. L., E. Stump and G. D. Rosenberg, eds.
Philadelphia: Academy of Natural Sciences, pp. 77-81.

I hope that gives you a place to start. . .

Andy
_______________________________
Andrew A. Farke
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Box C308
501 East St. Joseph Street
Rapid City, SD  57701
(605) 394-2784
andyfarke@hotmail.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Shawn H" <ih8wasps@yahoo.com>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Sunday, April 29, 2001 10:37 PM
Subject: percentage of_T. horridus_skulls showing healed scars resulting
from intraspecific combat?


> hello all,
>
> i was wondering if any of you were familiar with the
> statistics on the percentage of_Triceratops horridus_
> skulls having healed scars that resulted from damage
> inflicted by the horns of members of the same species.
>
> any information you could bring to my attention on
> this matter will be much appreciated.
>
> thanks in advance,
> Shawn Haugrud
>
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