Posted on 10/15/2010 5:40:14 PM PDT by decimon
New Haven, Conn.—It turns out that the undisputed king of the dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex, didn't just eat other dinosaurs but also each other. Paleontologists from the United States and Canada have found bite marks on the giants' bones that were made by other T. rex, according to a new study published online Oct. 15 in the journal PLoS ONE.
While searching through dinosaur fossil collections for another study on dinosaur bones with mammal tooth marks, Yale researcher Nick Longrich discovered a bone with especially large gouges in them. Given the age and location of the fossil, the marks had to be made by T. rex, Longrich said. "They're the kind of marks that any big carnivore could have made, but T. rex was the only big carnivore in western North America 65 million years ago."
It was only after discovering the bite marks were from a T. rex that Longrich realized the bone itself also belonged to the behemoth. After searching through a few dozen T. rex bones from several different museum fossil collections, he discovered a total of three foot bones (including two toes) and one arm bone that showed evidence of T. rex cannibalism, representing a significant percentage.
"It's surprising how frequent it appears to have been," Longrich said. "We're not exactly sure what that means."
The marks are definitely the result of feeding, although scientists aren't sure whether they are the result of scavengers or the end result of fighting, Longrich said, adding that if two T. rex fought to the death, the victor might have made a meal out of his adversary. "Modern big carnivores do this all the time," he said. "It's a convenient way to take out the competition and get a bit of food at the same time."
However, the marks appear to have been made some time after death, Longrich said, meaning that if one dinosaur killed another, it might have eaten most of the meat off the more accessible parts of the carcass before returning to pick at the smaller foot and arm bones.
While only one other dinosaur species, Majungatholus, is known to have been a cannibal, Longrich said the practice was likely more common than we think and that closer examination of fossil bones could turn up more evidence that other species also preyed on one another.
The finding is a big clue into the obscure eating habits of these enormous predators. While today's large carnivores often hunt together in packs, T. rex likely acted on their own, Longrich said. "These animals were some of the largest terrestrial carnivores of all time, and the way they approached eating was fundamentally different from modern species," he said. "There's a big mystery around what and how they ate, and this research helps to uncover one piece of the puzzle."
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Other authors of the paper include John Horner (Montana State University), Gregory Erickson (Florida State University) and Philip Currie (University of Alberta).
Citation: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013419
Credit: Nicholas Longrich/Yale University
Usage Restrictions: With credit.
Politics ping.
anti-social dinosaurs
So this could mean that maybe DemocRATS didn’t evolve from apes as they like to claim.
As my good friend, Lieutenant General Russ Honore, of Hurricane Katria fame would say. Those weren’t snipers, they were jus’ havin’ an argument.
gang a bong.....
"The nearly complete female specimen named "Sue," discovered in 1990 and the subject of bitter legal battles for many years, suffered a non-fatal broken rib. Embedded in the broken and infected rib was a tooth fragment from another T.rex. Larson also found fatal wounds on the left side of her skull that were clearly the result of a T.rex bite. "'Sue's face was literally torn off by another T.rex" Larson says."
They didn’t eat each other as a food choice.
The reason for the bite marks around the neck are the same as in all other species.
The males are fighting over the chicks.
Sue was cheating on Big-T.
He put her in her place.
"But perhaps the most intriguing insight into T.rex behavior comes from the latest find, a specimen named "Steven." Some of "Steven's" vertebrae were literally bitten in half, and the vertebral bones that connected to tenderloin and T. rex T-bone steaks are missing. The only known animal living at the time with large enough and strong enough jaws to bite through T.rex bone was T.rex."
According to Larson, this is the first evidence that T.rex may have feasted on its own kind. "We knew they fought each other, we knew they killed each other once in a while, but we didn't know they ate each other too," he said. "
Pimpin' ain't easy.
Coulda been the cannibalism.
Think Sue was one of the biggest found, if she had her a$$ kicked, just imagine what kicked it.
I'm pretty sure you're right, she was the biggest found.
I was surprised to see the article talking about cannibalism like it was a new theory or something.
And you know this because you have traveled back in time or are you guessing?
It would be more correct to say that "T. rex was the only big carnivore that we currently know about in western North America 65 million years ago.
The T-Rex probably was a carrion eater given his centroid of balance and his small forelegs. He was designed to bend over to bite while eating and his forelegs were for holding his bulk in the bite position. Eating another T-Rex body is completely within this scenario.
BTW, did you catch Sue’s plastic marrow?
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