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from the ground? How did male dinosaurs get past the thick tails of some females
to reach their goals? More intriguing, how did male dinosaurs get past the spiky or
clubbed tails of some females? For the larger dinosaurs, how did a female dinosaur
support the weight of a male without him breaking her back? How did the male get
off, or rather, disengage from the female? Sure, we have a few ideas that approach
thesequestionsfromwatchingwhatweconsidertodayas“charismaticmegafauna.”
Butelephants, giraffes,andrhinoceroses areinadequately sized andinappropriately
equippedwhencomparedtothelargestofdinosaurs.Itwouldbelikecomparingthe
mating habits of kangaroo rats to kangaroos, which is not just about size but also
anatomy and physiology.
So knowing that modern sex surrogates and zoo-based voyeurism just aren't
up to the task of giving us proper analogs, we must look at the fossil record. The
first and most obvious question would be: Have we ever found a male and female
dinosaur skeleton of the same species together in what might be construed as a
compromising position, depicting the bawdy aphorism “the beast with two backs”?
Frustratingly,asfarasweknownobodyfossilshavebeenfoundofacloselyjoined
male and female dinosaur of the same species, together forever. This disappoint-
ment is not surprising, as such a pair of fossils would have required an extraordin-
ary set of circumstances to have preserved them: mating, then both suddenly dying
whilemating,anexampleof
la petite mort
extendedabittooliterally.Foridealfos-
silization conditions, this sudden death of both partners would have been followed
by a quick burial, one that managed to keep them in close contact.
Still, paleontologists hold out hope that such fossils will be found some day
and are encouraged by an incredible find, which was of the “fighting dinosaurs”
found in Late Cretaceous rocks of Mongolia in 1971. This discovery was of a small
ceratopsian dinosaur,
Protoceratops
, on top of a dromaeosaur,
Velociraptor
, with
both locked in an embrace but a pointedly deadly one. The right forearm of the
Ve-
lociraptor
was in the mouth of the
Protoceratops
, which had apparently clamped
down on it, fracturing the arm. Meanwhile, the formidable raised claw on the
Velo-
