This is Side Door, a podcast from a Smithsonian.

I'm Tony Cohn and with my co-host Megan Dietry.

Hey guys.

We bring you three stories about squabbles big and small.

From the aesthetic movement's most enduring home renovation nightmare

to a debate that puts the future of an entire ecosystem on the shoulders of one very adorable

animal. Our first story about budding heads though starts 66 million years ago.

There are two types of dinosaur skulls that suggest that their animals may have been

engaging in head-butting. That's Hans Seuss, one of the head curators at the Smithsonian's

National Museum of Natural History.

One is a form that has a really thick skull roof.

A skull that is two feet in length has a skull roof that's a foot thick over the brain.

Associated specializations suggest that the skull was used as some kind of battering ram for fighting.

Somewhat similar to the thick scowl roof that we see in some big horn sheep.

And the other one is a group of dinosaurs called the horn dinosaurs, including the triceratops,

that have horns over their eyes and often in the nose region as well. my The reason for all this head-butting sounds a tiny bit familiar.

Well, these kinds of fighting behavior when we look in a living world,

it's usually to impress mates and to defend territory.

So you can show your mate what a fit male you are.

Those instincts are really in us too. We all want to defend our home, impress people, do a little

bit of flirting. At least those dinosaur battles served a purpose. Let me tell you about two people

fighting mostly over their egos.

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