Wednesday, April 22, 2015

It's surprisingly difficult to tell male and female Stegosaurus apart

Around 150 million years ago, it might not have been that difficult to look at a Stegosaurus and tell whether it was a male or a female. Today, however, it's a big challenge. Researchers find themselves staring at piles of bones, often unable to tell whether they're looking at multiple animals, different species, or one individual with a number of variations. Because of that, researchers seem to agree that there's been no convincing evidence so far for sex-based differences — like the mane on a male lion, a phenomenon scientists call "sexual dimorphism" — in any dinosaur, despite those differences being common among modern animals.

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