Extremely rare evidence of dinosaurs consuming mammals spotted

Dinosaurs inhabited this planet millions of years ago and in the last200 or so years, humanity has found much evidence of the mighty beasts. You would think that given that the very first evidence of dinosaurs was found in the early 1600s, we would know almost everything there is to know about them.

However, that's far from the truth: we are still finding surprising and fascinating discoveries that add to our knowledge. For example, a scientist recently spotted an extremely rare find that tells us more about what these beasts ate; this time it's a mammal on the menu.

In the first such find of the 21st century Hans Larsson, a professor of biology at McGill University’s Redpath Museum in Montreal while visiting a museum collection in China, spotted a mammal's foot preserved inside the fossilised guts of a Microraptor zhaoianus.

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This is only the 21st known example of a fossilised dinosaur and its last meal. The fossil was discovered in the early 2000s in Liaoning in northeastern China.

The Microraptor zhaoianus was a small, up to three metres long feathered therapod, i.e. a small dinosaur that walked on two legs.

^{Image courtesy:Hans Larsson/McGill University}

"At first, I couldn’t believe it. There was a tiny rodent-like mammal foot about a centimetre (0.4 inches) long perfectly preserved inside a Microraptor skeleton," said Larsson, as per a CNN report.

He added that finds like these are the only "solid evidence" researchers have about the food consumption of these long-extinct animals and that even these finds are very rare.

^{Image courtesy:Microraptor zhaoianus/Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology}

What makes the discovery so amazing is that previous fossilised specimens of the species showed proof of them consuming fish, birds and lizards. However, "this new find adds a small mammal to their diet, suggesting these dinosaurs were opportunistic and not picky eaters,” says Larrson.

The research that has been published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology talks of generalist predators like foxes and crows as the stabilisers of today's ecosystems. It adds that the recently uncovered evidence may prove that Microraptor zhaoianus and other dinosaurs from the therapod family, which included the famed Tyrannosaurus rex, may have served a similar function back when the mighty beasts roamed the planet.

(With inputs from agencies)

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