On gregarious behavior inAlbertosaurusThis article is one of a series of papers published in this Special Issue on the themeAlbertosaurus.

Abstract

One century ago, a field party from the American Museum of Natural History discovered a bonebed in the Upper Cretaceous Horseshoe Canyon Formation of Alberta, Canada. Excavations by that museum, the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, and the University of Alberta have revealed the presence of at least a dozen individuals — represented by articulated partial skeletons, associated skeletons, and disarticulated isolated elements — of Albertosaurus sarcophagus . Tyrannosaurids dominate the bonebed assemblage, which also includes an adult Hypacrosaurus altispinus , two individuals of Albertonykus borealis , and numerous other, predominantly terrestrial, vertebrates. Skeletal morphology, phylogenetic inference, monodominant bonebeds, trackway sites, and ecological inferences support the notion that some non-avian theropods were gregarious animals. And specifically in the Albertosaurus bonebed, associated geologic and taphonomic evidence do not rule out a behavioural component in this catastrophic, mass-death assemblage.