When mammals ate dinosaurs
Tuesday, August 4, 2020 - 11:31
in Paleontology & Archaeology
The cervical rib of a long-necked dinosaur from northwest China provides the oldest known evidence to date that early mammals fed on dinosaur meat around 160 million years ago. A research team led by Professor Hans-Ulrich Pfretzschner from the Department of Geosciences at the University of Tübingen discovered bite marks of a mammal the size of a modern shrew on a bone fragment of a sauropod that was approximately 20 meters long and weighed several tons. The researchers say the mammals were probably eating a dinosaur's carcass; this was the only way for such a small animal to eat a large one. This discovery, which provides information on the life and environment of the early mammals, has been published in the journal The Science of Nature.