 Debate has been going on about whether the tail spikes were used for display only , as posited by Gilmore in 1914 or used as a weapon . Robert Bakker noted the tail was likely to have been much more flexible than that of other dinosaurs , as it lacked ossified tendons , thus lending credence to the idea of the tail as a weapon . However , as Carpenter has noted , the plates overlap so many tail vertebrae , movement would be limited . Bakker also observed that Stegosaurus could have maneuvered its rear easily , by keeping its large hind limbs stationary and pushing off with its very powerfully muscled but short fore limbs , allowing it to swivel deftly to deal with attack . More recently , a study of tail spikes by McWhinney et al . , which showed a high incidence of trauma @-@ related damage , lends more weight to the position that the spikes were indeed used in combat . This study showed that 9 @.@ 8 % of Stegosaurus specimens examined had injuries to their tail spikes . Additional support for this idea was a punctured tail vertebra of an Allosaurus into which a tail spike fits perfectly . 
