How do you sex a dinosaur? The answer isn’t to be found in the pages of books like Ravished by the Triceratops or Chuck’s Dinosaur Tinglers. Not to mention that the fossil record has, so far, been silent on the mechanics of dinosaur reproduction. What paleontologists are asking is how we can distinguish dinosaur sexes from each other and what those biological basics might tell us about the “terrible lizards.”
Paleontologists have been trying to identify female and male dinosaurs for decades. Experts have proposed all sorts of tell-tale signs, from ornamentation on the skull to the spacing and angle of splint-like bones beneath the tail. What researchers want are signs of sexual dimorphism, or traits that can distinguish one sex from another.
