Were dinosaurs unfeeling scaly brutes or caring, well behaved and intelligent? This debate has continued since dinosaurs were first discov...
Were dinosaurs unfeeling scaly brutes or caring, well behaved and intelligent? This debate has continued since dinosaurs were first discovered 200 years ago and have spilt over into the movies and popular consciousness.
In seeking to answer questions like this, palaeontologists generally look at the nearest living relatives, in this case, crocodilians and birds. Do we see dinosaurs as exhibiting complex social behaviour like modern birds, or perhaps more rudimentary habits, as seen in crocodiles and alligators?
Dinosaurs were originally perceived as brutish, perhaps cannibalistic and certainly lacking the brainpower or inclination to care for their young. Then, in the 1970s and 1980s, Jack Horner and his colleagues pioneered a new view in their studies of Maiasaura, a plant-eating dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous (77 million years ago) of Montana.
Horner and colleagues found evidence that the adult Maiasaura dinosaurs returned to the same nesting spot year after year, showing enough intelligence to remember the place and appreciate its favourable character, whether access to food or safety. Their nests in the ground were spaced about seven metres (or one dinosaur length) apart, suggesting that like modern communally nesting birds, they liked to be close – but not so close that they would bite and bicker. This research saw dinosaurs redeemed as loving...
