[mnehring]

Caught in the act of evolution, the odd-looking, feathered dinosaur was becoming more vegetarian, moving away from its meat-eating ancestors.
It had the built-for-speed legs of meat-eaters, but was developing the bigger belly of plant-eaters. It had already lost the serrated teeth needed for tearing flesh. Those were replaced with the smaller, duller vegetarian variety.

Becoming vegetarian? Isn't this called an omnivore?

[MeanWestTexan]

"Becoming vegetarian? Isn't this called an omnivore?"

Not exactly --- but I had the same thought and looked up the definition.

"Omnivores" --- the most common example people humans and bears BTW --- have a pretty unique set of both meat-eating (front, tearing) teeth and plant eating (back, flat grinders).

This guy, in contrast, had flat teeth all around --- but possessed the BODY of a preditor --- legs, eyes-in-front (compare and contrast wolf vs. deer).

There are lean, mean, pointy-tooth machines just like this guy (sharing other family traits) earlier.

And fat wide-eyed flat-toothed guys (but still with same family traits) after.

Hence, "transitional" vs. settled omnivore.

Not the whole puzzle, but certainly "some evidence."