In Days of Old, a Bite in the Face Wins a Date?

With tiny forearms, juvenile Tyrannosaurid dinosaurs nipped at one another with jaws of sharp teeth. Per a recent article in the journal Paleobiology, a team of paleontologists (Caleb Brown, Philip Currie, François Therrien) examined “intraspecific facial bite lesions” on skulls of 200 tyrannosaurid specimens (not just T. rex but also, Albertosaurus, Gorgosaurus, and Daspletosaurus). The youngest skulls showed few to no signs of injury. Facial scars tied to bite marks from fellow tyrannosaurs began appearing when they were half-grown. The team of paleontologists considers this wound/scar frequency to be a sign of intraspecific aggression or agonism tied to intrasexual aggression. In plain English, young dinos going through puberty tried to show off by biting one another in the face.