How did Dinosaurs Mate? A topic that was Once Beyond Science is now being Reconstructed

Many of the evidences point towards how birds mate

We do know that the modern birds and certain reptiles are the living descendants of dinosaurs. From that we can guarantee that the males would’ve deposited sperm inside the females who later laid fertilized eggs. While scientists did manage to figure out certain nooks and crannies in the dinosaur biology, the part about dinosaur sex still remained unsolved.

A topic that was taboo and beyond science

The study of sexual behaviour in animals was considered taboo historically, and it also seemed beyond the reach of science. Nobody could confidently come out and speak about the mating habits of these extinct giants. But we know more now thanks to dinosaur fossils. Scientists were able to deduct matters like when dinosaurs reached their sexual maturity and how they used to attract mates.

Relying on birds and crocodilians

Scientists were able to discover skeletons of 47-million-year-old turtles that died while copulating and a pair of 320-year-old sharks that were believed to have been courting when they got rapidly buried. But they weren’t able to discover any such skeletons of dinosaurs.

This made them turn towards birds and crocodilians to know more about their private parts. Crocodilians include crocodiles, alligators and gharials, and a trait present in both them and the birds must have been present in dinosaurs too. That trait is a cloaca – the single end point for the reproductive, urinary and intestinal tracts in both sexes of the species. The cloaca could’ve appeared as a slit under the dinosaur’s tail.

Most male birds don’t have a penis inside their cloaca and used to pass their semen by pressing their orifice to the female’s. But there are some birds who are packing meat, and it would have been similar for dinosaurs to have such a structure.

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