Posted on 03/15/2012 12:36:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Research by Dr. Christopher Noto and a team of paleontologists published this week in the international journal Palaios describes recently discovered fossils from the Cretaceous Period (145-65 million years ago) of Texas that show evidence of attack by a new species of giant crocodyliform (croc-relative). Bite marks on fossil bones provide a rare glimpse of predatory behavior that indicate this animal was a top predator that regularly consumed turtles and even ate dinosaurs...
For most extinct species, scientists can never directly observe such predatory behavior. Paleontologists must resort to other, indirect indicators. Bite marks on fossil bone are a great way to figure out who ate who and how.
The fossils come from the Arlington Archosaur Site (AAS), a recently discovered fossil locality in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The AAS preserves the remains of a 100 million year old coastal delta that includes a diverse assemblage of animals... When studying the fossils in detail, researchers discovered dozens of turtle and dinosaur bones had bite marks that they were able to match to the crocodyliform, whose remains are found at the same site... What they found is that the AAS crocodyliform fed in much the same way as its living counterparts... The dinosaur remains come from hadrosaurs, or duck-billed dinosaurs, which were major herbivores of the Cretaceous. The bones represent younger individuals, which also happen to be favorite targets for living crocodilians.
The turtle fossils paint an even more dramatic picture. Tooth marks on turtle shell pieces occur mainly around the shell edges and the central parts of shells are missing... This is the first documented evidence in the fossil record of the specific "nutcracking" behavior of turtle shells by crocodilians.
(Excerpt) Read more at uwp.edu ...
In the illustration, left, example of bite marks (arrows) on a piece of turtle shell (top left) and dinosaur bone (bottom left) made by a giant croc-relative from the Arlington Archosaur Site near Dallas, Texas; right, reconstruction of AAS crocodyliform trying to break open the shell of a turtle caught in its jaws (by Jude Swales, Seattle, Washington)
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| GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
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Thanks Renfield for the link to the Wired article (which I didn’t use). To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. |
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“For most extinct species, scientists can never directly observe such predatory behavior”
For *most* extinct species?
If you can observe an animal’s predatory behavior, by definition, it is not extinct.
Great, now someone will post before and after pics of Helen Thomas. Thanks a lot. ;’)
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