Proof that life was nasty, brutish and short in the dinosaur age has emerged from the study of one particularly unfortunate tyrannosaur.

The skull of the Daspletosaurus showed that it suffered numerous injuries during life, at least some of which were probably inflicted by a member of its own species.

Then after the creature died it was partly eaten by another Daspletosaurus, the evidence suggests.

The dinosaur in question, from Alberta, Canada, was not fully grown – the equivalent of an older teenager in human terms – when its troubled life ended.

It measured just under six metres and weighed around half a tonne.

Lead scientist David Hone, from Queen Mary, University of London, said: “This animal clearly had a tough life, suffering numerous injuries across the head including some that must have been quite nasty. The most likely candidate to have done this is another member of the same species, suggesting some serious fights between these animals during their lives.”

Daspletosaurus, whose name means “frightful lizard”, lived in North America 75 million years ago, some 10 million years before its more famous and slightly larger cousin Tyrannosaurus rex.

Like other tyrannosaurs, it is thought to have both hunted prey and scavenged for food.

The skull studied by Hone’s team bore signs of numerous bite injuries including several matching the teeth of tyrannosaurs.

One bite on the back of the head had broken off part of the skull and left a circular tooth-shaped puncture. Alterations to the bone’s surface indicating healing showed that these injuries were not fatal.

There was nothing to suggest that the dinosaur had been killed by another tyrannosaur, but signs of damage after death yielded evidence of cannibalism.

A large tyrannosaur, probably another Daspletosaurus, had bitten into the animal after death and presumably eaten part of it.

Scientists have already uncovered fossil evidence of vicious fights between large carnivorous dinosaurs, which could have clashed over food, potential mates, or territory.

But the new research, published in the online journal Peerj, provides a unique record of injuries to a single individual before and after death.