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This Ancient ‘Hell Chicken’ Might Be the First Known Fruit-Loving Dinosaur, Revealing a Whole New Cretaceous Lifestyle
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180989801/
INTRO: When it comes to the Late Cretaceous period’s main characters, people tend to think of the terrifying, carnivorous Tyrannosaurus rex or the huge, long-necked, herbivorous sauropods. But the menu some 66 million to 100 million years ago offered more than just meat and veggies, and researchers have finally discovered evidence of a species taking advantage of it.
In a study published October 10 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers describe what might be the first known dinosaur that ate mostly fruit. The newly described Infernogallus jamesi had a mouth and jaw adapted to chewing soft foods similar to today’s frugivorous parrots. The findings shed new light on Cretaceous ecology and suggest that dinosaurs were more diverse than previously thought.
“It has been proposed before that some groups of dinosaurs ate fruits, but there was never evidence to back it up,” study co-author Thomas Dudgeon, an evolutionary ecologist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, tells Reuters’ Will Dunham.
The genus name Infernogallus means “hell chicken.” That’s because of the creature’s small size and because the fossils, including a nearly complete skull and partial skeleton, were found in the Hell Creek Formation, a famous boneyard that stretches across Montana, the Dakotas and Wyoming. The species name jamesi honors the grandfather of one of the co-authors, who sparked the scientist’s love for paleontology.
I. jamesi weighed an estimated 25 pounds and was about the size of a turkey. It was one of the smallest caenagnathids—a group of beaked, two-legged, feathered dinosaurs—and lived in the same region and at the same time as the fearsome T. rex, around 67 million years ago. But the most notable aspect of the newly identified species was its chewing abilities.
“It’s pretty rare for animals to become specialized for a diet of fruit, so when it happens, it comes with some remarkable adaptations,” Dudgeon says in a statement. “The anatomy of Infernogallus is bizarre among dinosaurs, and we quickly realized that we were dealing with something special.” (MORE - details)
https://youtu.be/n6txJZoK9ng
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/n6txJZoK9ng
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180989801/
INTRO: When it comes to the Late Cretaceous period’s main characters, people tend to think of the terrifying, carnivorous Tyrannosaurus rex or the huge, long-necked, herbivorous sauropods. But the menu some 66 million to 100 million years ago offered more than just meat and veggies, and researchers have finally discovered evidence of a species taking advantage of it.
In a study published October 10 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers describe what might be the first known dinosaur that ate mostly fruit. The newly described Infernogallus jamesi had a mouth and jaw adapted to chewing soft foods similar to today’s frugivorous parrots. The findings shed new light on Cretaceous ecology and suggest that dinosaurs were more diverse than previously thought.
“It has been proposed before that some groups of dinosaurs ate fruits, but there was never evidence to back it up,” study co-author Thomas Dudgeon, an evolutionary ecologist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, tells Reuters’ Will Dunham.
The genus name Infernogallus means “hell chicken.” That’s because of the creature’s small size and because the fossils, including a nearly complete skull and partial skeleton, were found in the Hell Creek Formation, a famous boneyard that stretches across Montana, the Dakotas and Wyoming. The species name jamesi honors the grandfather of one of the co-authors, who sparked the scientist’s love for paleontology.
I. jamesi weighed an estimated 25 pounds and was about the size of a turkey. It was one of the smallest caenagnathids—a group of beaked, two-legged, feathered dinosaurs—and lived in the same region and at the same time as the fearsome T. rex, around 67 million years ago. But the most notable aspect of the newly identified species was its chewing abilities.
“It’s pretty rare for animals to become specialized for a diet of fruit, so when it happens, it comes with some remarkable adaptations,” Dudgeon says in a statement. “The anatomy of Infernogallus is bizarre among dinosaurs, and we quickly realized that we were dealing with something special.” (MORE - details)
https://youtu.be/n6txJZoK9ng