If all we could ever find of Dinosaurs were fossils and eggs, how could the paleontologists determine the hunting behaviours and hunting patterns of different species?

Question

If all we could ever find of Dinosaurs were fossils and eggs, how could the paleontologists determine the hunting behaviours and hunting patterns of different species?

In: Biology

Answer 1

We are under the assumption that the dinosaurs were optimized for their most common hunting behavior and became even more optimized for this over time. And these changes in physical structure is visible on the skeletons. We can see how much load the bones could take, where the muscles attached, how different parts wore down over time, etc. We can make a lot of educated guesses based on this information. But it should be said that a lot of the theories we had in the 90s have since been disproved as new evidence have been uncovered.