Page "Stegosaurus" Paragraph 46

There has been debate about whether the tail spikes were used for display only, as posited by Gilmore in 1914 or used as a weapon.

Robert Bakker noted the tail was likely to have been much more flexible than that of other dinosaurs, as it lacked ossified tendons, thus lending credence to the idea of the tail as a weapon.

However, as Carpenter has noted, the plates overlap so many tail vertebrae that movement would be limited.

Bakker also observed that Stegosaurus could have maneuvered its rear easily, by keeping its large hindlimbs stationary and pushing off with its very powerfully muscled but short forelimbs, allowing it to swivel deftly to deal with attack.

More recently, a study of tail spikes by McWhinney et al., which showed a high incidence of trauma-related damage, lends more weight to the position that the spikes were indeed used in combat.

Additional support for this idea was a punctured tail vertebra of Allosaurus into which a tail spike fit perfectly.