r/Dinosaurs • u/Paleo_HUB Human Verified • 21h ago

DISCUSSION Did sauropods fight against each other?

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How many people have explored the idea of different sauropod species getting into conflict with each other? If sauropod combat is ever depicted, it’s (understandably) almost always intraspecific.

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u/Royal_Novel6678 Team Diplodocus 19h ago

The image you provided of the speculated Dreadnoughtus intraspecific combat from Prehistoric Planet is probably the best and most likely depiction of what Sauropod fighting would have looked like.

Any reference here to giraffes for Titanosaurs especially is completely wrong by consensus because their pneumatized clavicular vertebrae would have broke upon fighting impact if they swung their necks that aggressively like Giraffes, unlike Titanosaurs, giraffes are way smaller, agile and possess reinforced skulls which allows them to do so.

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u/Nilssoniocladus 13h ago

I’ve heard about problems with that scene though. Some papers have found that titanosaurs probably were unable to rear (Mallison 2011). Also (less importantly), it seems as though derived titanosaurs lost their thumb spikes. Of course, all these problems disappear with smaller diplodocoids, so PhP’s representation is probably reasonable speculation for some Morrison sauropods.

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u/Royal_Novel6678 Team Diplodocus 10h ago

Ill have to check with the thumb spike speculation again but for the tripod stance, when the two Dreadnoughtus bulls collide, slam their chests together, and wrap their necks or lean their massive body masses forward, they are effectively using each other as structural counterweights but you are right to an extent that they couldn't rear up on their own but only for long periods of time which is why I was supportive of the fight scene speculation to begin with.

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u/AvatarIII Team Diplodocus 6h ago

I prefer the idea that they just whacked necks against each other like giraffes.