I love this story about ankylosaurs and everything about it. Finally, even scientists come around to the hypothesis that sometimes animals just like whacking each other with their tails, that it’s not all about practicality and predators.
Cretaceous Fight Club: New find suggests ankylosaurs’ tail clubs were for bashing each other
Prior to the paper published today in Biology Letters, most scientists looked upon the dinosaur’s tail club, a substantial bony protrusion composed of two oval-shaped knobs, primarily as a defense against predation. The team behind the new paper argues that this is not necessarily the case. To make their case, they focus on years of ankylosaur research, analysis of the fossil record, and data from an exceptionally well-preserved specimen named Zuul crurivastator.
Zuul’s name, in fact, embraces that previous idea. While "Zuul" references the creature in the original Ghostbusters, the two Latin words that make up its species name are crus (shin or shank) and vastator(destroyer). Hence, the destroyer of shins: a direct reference to where the dinosaur’s club may have struck approaching tyrannosaurs or other theropods.
“Destroyer of Shins.” 😆 The dinosaur version of the Labrador Retriever tail.
Arbour points out that giraffes will also do this kind of damage to each other. If you’ve ever been around sheep or goats, they also really like whacking each other with their heads.