The harmed Edmontosaurus skull was discovered in 2005 in the Hell Creek Formation of eastern Montana.

The fossil is now housed in the paleontology collection at Museum of the Rockies, and it consists of an informing information: lodged inside its face is the tooth of a tyrannosaur.

“Although bite marks on bones are fairly typical, discovering an ingrained tooth is incredibly unusual,” stated University of Alberta doctoral trainee Taia Wyenberg-Henzler.

” The terrific aspect of an ingrained tooth, especially in a skull, is it provides you the identity of not just who was bitten however likewise who did the biting.”

“This enabled us to paint a photo of what occurred to this Edmontosaurustype of like Cretaceous criminal offense scene private investigators.”

Comparing the ingrained tooth to all the meat-eating residents in the Hell Creek Formation exposed that it most carefully matched with the teeth of TyrannosaurusCT scans of the skull, assisted offer higher information.

“A fossil like this is additional interesting since it catches a habits: a tyrannosaur biting into this duckbill’s face,” stated Museum of the Rockies’ manager of paleontology John Scannella.

“The skull reveals no indications of recovery around the tyrannosaur tooth, so it might have currently been dead when it was bitten, or it might be dead since it was bitten.”

“Looking at the method the tooth is embedded in the nose of the Edmontosaurus recommends that it fulfilled its enemy in person, something that generally occurs to an animal that was eliminated by a predator,” Wyenberg-Henzler stated.

“The quantity of force needed for a tooth to have actually ended up being broken off in bone likewise indicates using fatal force.”

“For me, this paints a scary image of the last minutes of this Edmontosaurus“

“The feeding routines of Tyrannosaurusamong the biggest meat-eating animals to ever stroll the Earth, have actually been the topic of research study and dispute for years,” Dr. Scannella stated.

“The tooth inside this Edmontosaurus skull offers a more peek into Tyrannosaurus habits.”

The findings were released online in the journal PeerJ

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T.C.A. Wyenberg-Henzler & & J.B. Scannella. 2026. Behavioral ramifications of an ingrained tyrannosaurid tooth and associated tooth marks on an articulated skull of Edmontosaurus from the Hell Creek Formation, Montana. PeerJ 14: e20796; doi: 10.7717/ peerj.20796