Where was this fossil discovered?
Dinosaurs were scary animals that we have read about and seen in pictures and movies. They used to hunt other animals for food. But, a fossil shows that sometimes other animals fought back against the dinosaurs.
This fossil was discovered in China in 2012. The team studying the fossil published a report recently in a journal named Scientific Reports.
What does this fossil show?
The really old fossil shows a fight scene between a small mammal and a dinosaur. The mammal is biting into a beaked dinosaur's ribcage. Its left paw tightly grips the dinosaur's lower jaw. The mammal is around the size of a cat. The dinosaur is as big as a dog.
Both the mammal and the dinosaur were not fully grown yet, according to experts. It looks like they died while fighting during a natural disaster. The mammal’s position on top of the dinosaur and its clutching and biting posture also shows that it was feeding on the weakened dinosaur.
Possibly, the mammal was hunting the dinosaur! However, both of them were buried by a volcanic debris flow.
What did we learn from this article?
This shows us that there is more for us to learn about the animals that lived millions of years ago. Clearly, dinosaurs were not the only predators back then.
This article also demonstrates that size doesn’t matter when it comes to strength. If you are self-confident and brave enough, you can win against much bigger rivals as well (we don’t mean an actual fight, but a metaphorical one).
What do you think of the smaller animal attacking the bigger dinosaur in the fossil? Tell us in the comments.
