dinosaur behavior – New interpretations of dinosaur evidence suggest many iconic behaviors—like pack hunting—were rarer or more complex than popular culture implies, while other behaviors like juvenile group survival and display-driven features may be more widespread.
Dinosaurs didn’t just live for millions of years across every continent—they also behaved in ways that don’t always fit the stories people have repeated for decades.
Misryoum spoke with palaeontologist Dave Hone. a researcher known for work on dinosaur behavior and for studying how fossil evidence should (and shouldn’t) be interpreted.. His central message is simple: some of the most familiar dinosaur habits—especially the ones borrowed from modern animals and blockbuster plots—may be getting more credit than the evidence can actually provide.. Misryoum
One of the biggest suspects is the idea that famous predators hunted in coordinated packs.. The “Velociraptor pack” image comes straight from popular culture. but Misryoum’s conversation with Hone emphasizes how unusual it is for paleontology to have the kind of proof you’d need for group hunting.. Dinosaurs lived across diverse ecosystems for 160–170 million years. so it’s not that cooperation never happened; it’s that the fossil record rarely gives clean signals that predators were targeting prey together.
A well-known case involves Deinonychus fossils found alongside a large herbivore, Tenontosaurus.. The original interpretation suggested a coordinated hunt.. Yet Misryoum reports that later reanalyses have questioned whether the association really means group predation—arguing that you can sometimes misread “found together” as “worked together.” Hone’s caution is practical: modern predators are easier to study in real time. and even when animals are social. their hunting strategies don’t always translate to the fossil record.. Misryoum notes that if you used the same logic too loosely. you’d end up expecting group hunting in animals where it doesn’t actually occur.
Still, dinosaurs weren’t solitary monsters floating through time.. Evidence for group living among herbivores does exist, but context matters.. Large numbers of herbivores can be preserved together after events like floodwaters. in the same way that a massive river crossing can temporarily make an animal population look like a single mega-herd.. Misryoum describes the risk: the preservation snapshot can exaggerate how animals lived day to day.. The fossil record may preserve the moment, not the routine.
Where the evidence becomes more emotionally intuitive—because it connects directly to survival—is the question of juveniles.. Misryoum highlights a striking pattern: although juveniles are uncommon overall in fossil collections. they may show up in groups when they are found.. Hone points to a biological pressure that would make sense even without debate—young animals need to eat constantly. and being alert to predators while foraging is difficult.. A group increases the odds that someone will spot danger, letting individuals spend more time feeding.. In that view, “grouping” may be less about hunting and more about simply staying alive long enough to grow.
Predation itself likely looked more like targeted damage than cinematic choreography.. Misryoum reports that there are fossils showing marks consistent with bites and failed predation attempts by theropods.. One interpretation centers on anatomy: biting certain parts of the body—such as the tail—could cripple an animal quickly.. Huge leg muscles anchored in the tail area. paired with rich internal tissues. would make those strikes especially effective if the goal was to slow prey.
But dinosaurs also fought within their own kind.. Facial injuries are frequently reported in tyrannosaurs. including cases where marks appear to have healed—evidence that these were not just fatal attacks.. Misryoum also notes that ankylosaurs—armored herbivores often described as “built to resist predators”—may have used their club-like tails and heavy armor in fights with other ankylosaurs.. In this interpretation, the armor’s design is multifunctional.. Hone’s reasoning is that structures don’t have one purpose forever; features can be shaped first by one pressure and later “recruited” for another.. The Misryoum takeaway is that even the most iconic defensive traits might have been part of social conflict rather than only a passive shield.
A similar reframing may apply to the flamboyant headgear of ceratopsians.. Triceratops-style frills and horn arrangements are widely described as anti-predator equipment.. Misryoum reports Hone’s alternative emphasis: sexual selection.. If display traits grow rapidly at sexual maturity, that pattern should show up in the fossil record.. Hone points to analyses of Protoceratops where frill growth appears slow until an animal approaches adult size and then accelerates—a trajectory that fits a display role more than simple static defense.
Even flying reptiles, often treated as a separate story from “dinosaurs,” help illuminate how scientists think about development and behavior.. Misryoum describes Hone’s discussion of pterosaurs and the emerging evidence from pterosaur embryos.. The key idea is precocity: if pterosaur hatchlings already had long wings with strong bones. it suggests they could be capable of flight immediately after emerging from eggs.. That would also change what we expect about parental care.. Hone argues that pterosaurs may have grown slowly. which fits the energy demands of flight—yet he doesn’t treat slow growth as proof that parents were absent.. His broader comparison to living crocodilians (the closest living relatives of non-avian dinosaurs) and to birds (literally dinosaurs) supports a starting hypothesis: parental care should be considered unless evidence strongly contradicts it.. Misryoum
This matters beyond trivia because it influences how we imagine daily life on prehistoric landscapes.. A mother pterosaur (or a parent strategy involving some form of care) isn’t necessary to make precocial flying plausible—but it isn’t automatically ruled out either.. Misryoum reports that Hone sees the “starting hypothesis” approach as a safeguard against assumptions.
Head crests offer another example of how behavior can be hidden in plain sight.. Many pterosaurs had cranial crests, and some exceptional fossils preserve soft tissue shapes.. Misryoum notes Hone’s skepticism about crests serving steering functions.. Instead. he argues that the pattern—especially crest differences across species and the way they change with age—fits sexual selection better.. If crests were mainly for aerodynamic steering, the designs might be expected to converge toward similar shapes under similar forces.
Why, then, didn’t birds reach the biggest flight sizes pterosaurs achieved?. Misryoum relays Hone’s comparison logic: birds carry different weight costs at takeoff and rely on feathered wings. which create constraints as size increases.. Pterosaurs, in contrast, were not feathered.. Their wings were membranous. extremely thin. and their flight muscles were carried in front limbs—potentially helping them launch and fly with less structural overhead.. In that framing. it’s not just “pterosaurs were better flyers. ” but “their bodies matched the physics of huge flight more efficiently.”
Misryoum closes with a message aimed at how people picture dinosaurs themselves.. The most useful mental shift. Hone says. is to treat dinosaurs as real animals—dynamic. varied. and sometimes surprisingly social in the ways that matter most for survival and reproduction.. Size will always grab attention. but the real excitement is in getting the behavior right: not the hyperbole. not the clichés. and not the convenient modern comparisons—just the evidence. interpreted carefully. one fossil at a time.