Last meal of 75-million-year-old tyrannosaur revealed by scientists
Dinosaurs have been researched for decades and every step closer we get to finding out what their lives were like is a great thing for science.
So, when researchers found the body of a 75-million-year-old tyrannosaur, they probably didn’t think they’d stumble upon something as amazing as they did.
According to the researchers, because of the preservation of the animal and the contents of its stomach, now we can see how tyrannosaurs adapted their diets.
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Dr Darla Zelenitsky, from the University of Calgary said that the findings prove to be ‘solid evidence that tyrannosaurs drastically changed their diet as they grew up’.
After recent findings provided what predatory dinosaurs may have realistically sounded like now we know what they ate too - each other.
Let’s be more specific here. They ate each other’s babies.
The dino in question was a juvenile gorgosaurus, which is a close cousin of the T. rex.
They estimated it to be around seven years old and 330kg when it died, which would put it in its teenage years of development.
But here’s where it gets interesting as underneath the ribcage, were the hind limbs of two, small dinosaurs called citipes.
Dr Zelenitsky is one of the lead scientists in the study published in the journal Science Advances.
She said: "We now know that these teenage [tyrannosaurs] hunted small, young dinosaurs."
But that’s just the start of what the gorgosaurs ate - and it’s not whole cows like in Jurassic Park.
As this one was a youngling, it adds another layer to how their eating habits form as they grow up.
So, if a seven year old gorgosaur eats baby citipes - what do you reckon a three-tonne adult will munch on?
Well, according to fossil evidence and bite marks on the bones of larger dinosaurs, scientists have concluded that they ate very large plant-eating dinosaurs - think your brontosaurus.
Dr Francois Therrien, from the Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology, explained to the BBC that adult tyrannosaurs were ‘quite indiscriminate eaters’ who nabbed large prey by ‘biting through bone and scraping off flesh’.
Lovely.
Dr Zelenitsky added: "These smaller, immature tyrannosaurs were probably not ready to jump into a group of horned dinosaurs, where the adults weighed thousands of kilograms".
The fossil was discovered in the Alberta Badlands in 2009 and took years to prepare, so researchers didn’t initially know what they were going to find once it opened.
But once they did, they hit the motherload.
Dr Therrien, the other lead scientist in the study said: "The rock within the ribcage was removed to expose what was hidden inside.
"And lo and behold - the complete hind legs of two baby dinosaurs, both under a year old."
Dr Zelenitsky believes that this means that this particular gorgosaurus ‘seems to have wanted the drumsticks - probably because that's the meatiest part’.
As they are a lot smaller than their adult counterparts, they were able to feed differently.
For instance, adults have rounder 'banana' teeth as they age, whereas juveniles have blade-like teeth that can dissect their prey.
While the adults had to bite down with their powerful teeth, the gorgosaurs could rip off legs to swallow them whole.
As palaeontologist from the University of Edinburgh and the National Museum of Scotland, Prof Steve Brusatte puts it: "They weren't just monsters, they were real, living things and pretty sophisticated feeders."
Topics: Jurassic Park, News, Science
Britt Jones