Horns

• A dinosaur's horns got bigger as the animal grew--they were not shed and replaced each year like the antlers of today's deer.

• Each horn had a bony core and an outer covering of horny substance formed mainly from keratin.

• Horns were most common among the plant-eating dinosaurs. They were probably used for self-defense and to defend offspring against predators.

• The biggest horns belonged to the ceratopsians or "horn-faces," such as Triceratops.

• In some ceratopsians, just the bony core of the horn was about 3ft (1m) long, not including the outer sheath.

• The ceratopsian Styracosaurus or "spiked reptile" had a series of long horns around the top of its neck frill, and a very long horn on its nose.

• Horns may have been used in head-swinging displays to intimidate rivals and make physical fighting less likely.

• In battle, male dinosaurs may have locked horns in a trial of strength, as antelopes do today.

• Armored dinosaurs such as the nodosaur Panoplosaurus had horned spikes along the sides of its body.

STAR FACT
Dinosaurs may have used their horns to push over plants or dig up roots for food.

By: Parker, Steve, Dinosaurs