Mammals Might Have Hunted Down Dinosaurs for Dinner, Uncommon Fossil Suggests

NEW YORK (AP) — An uncommon discover in China suggests some early mammals could have hunted dinosaur for dinner.

The fossil reveals a badgerlike creature chomping down on a small, beaked dinosaur, their skeletons intertwined. The discover comes from a website often known as “China’s Pompeii,” the place mud and particles from long-ago volcanoes buried creatures of their tracks.

“It does look like this can be a prehistoric hunt, captured in stone, like a freeze body,” College of Edinburgh paleontologist Steve Brusatte, who was not concerned with the examine, stated in an electronic mail.

The fossil, described Tuesday within the journal Scientific Reports, reveals two creatures from round 125 million years in the past, through the Cretaceous interval.

Though the mammal is far smaller, researchers assume it was attacking the dinosaur once they each acquired caught within the volcanic circulation, stated examine writer Jordan Mallon, a paleobiologist on the Canadian Museum of Nature. The mammal is perched on the dinosaur, its paws gripping the reptile’s jaw and a hind limb whereas its enamel plunge into the ribcage.

“I’ve by no means seen a fossil like this earlier than,” Mallon stated.

That mammals ate dinosaur meat had been proposed earlier than: one other fossil confirmed a mammal died with dinosaur remains in its gut. However the brand new discover additionally means that mammals could have really preyed on dinosaurs a number of occasions their dimension, and didn’t simply scavenge ones that had been already useless, Mallon stated.

“This turns the outdated story on its head,” Brusatte stated. “We’re used to considering of the Age of Dinosaurs as a time when dinosaurs dominated the world, and the tiny mammals cowered within the shadows.”

The examine authors acknowledged that there have been some fossil forgeries recognized from this a part of the world, which Mallon stated was a priority once they began their analysis. However after doing their very own preparations of the skeletons and analyzing the rock samples, he stated they had been assured that the fossil — which was discovered by a farmer in 2012 — was real, and would welcome different scientists to check the fossil as nicely.

The mammal within the fossil duo is the meat-eating Repenomamus robustus, in regards to the dimension of a home cat, Mallon stated. The dinosaur — Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis — was about as massive as a medium-sized canine with a parrotlike beak.

This species was a plant eater, however different dinosaurs had been meat eaters or ate each. Ultimately, dinosaurs had been in all probability nonetheless consuming mammals extra usually than the opposite means round, Mallon stated.

“And but we now know that the mammals had been in a position to combat again, at the very least at occasions,” he stated.

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