The new find suggests that mammals may have actually preyed on dinosaurs several times their size, and didn’t just scavenge ones that were already dead.
This image provided by the Canadian Museum of Nature shows entangled dinosaur and mammal skeletons. The scale bar equals 10 cm. The unusual fossil from China suggests some early mammals may have hunted down dinosaur meat for dinner. The fossil shows a badger-like creature chomping down on a beaky dinosaur three times its size. The research published on Tuesday, July 18, 2023, adds to growing evidence that even when dinosaurs ruled the Earth, some mammals were biting back.
Even though the mammal is much smaller, researchers think it was attacking the dinosaur when they both got caught in the volcanic flow, said study author Jordan Mallon, a paleobiologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature. The mammal is perched on the dinosaur, its paws gripping the reptile’s jaw and a hind limb while its teeth plunge into the ribcage.
The study authors acknowledged that there have been some fossil forgeries known from this part of the world, which Mallon said was a concern when they started their research. But after doing their own preparations of the skeletons and analyzing the rock samples, he said they were confident that the fossil — which was found by a farmer in 2012 — was genuine, and would welcome other scientists to study the fossil as well.
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