Mammal bites dinosaur in ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ fossil find

AFP | Paris                    

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

A badger-like mammal was sinking its teeth into the ribs of a dinosaur three times its size when they were buried in volcanic ash 125 million years ago, capturing the pair in a deadly embrace.

The fight scene, preserved in a fossil discovered in China, suggests that small mammals preyed on the dinosaurs that ruled Earth during the Cretaceous period more than previously thought, scientists said yesterday.

Jordan Mallon, a palaeontologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature, said that when he first saw the fossil “my eyes popped out of my head”. Mallon, a co-author of a new study led by Chinese researchers, said they believe the fossil is the first ever discovered that shows a mammal and dinosaur fighting each other.

Mammals were generally considered far too small to prey on the dinosaurs that dominated the world during the tens of millions of years they shared on Earth. But the fossil shows a badger-sized Repenomamus robustus sitting on top of Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis, a plant-eating dinosaur that stood 120 centimetres (47 inches) tall and had a beak like a parrot.

The mammal -- one of the largest of its time but still a third the weight of the dinosaur -- is sinking his sharp teeth into the dinosaur’s ribs and gripping onto its leg. The way the pair are intertwined shows that the mammal was not scavenging on a dead dinosaur, Mallon said.

“The dinosaur has collapsed down and trapped the hind limb of the mammal in the fold of its knee,” indicating it was an attack, he said. The dinosaur also bears no bite marks, which mammals often leave on scavenged bodies.