As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Countless fossilized bones from a Cretaceous-period bonebed in Wyoming, the United States, provide uncommon physical proof that Tyrannosaurus rex fed upon the carcasses of a duck-billed dinosaur types called Edmontosaurus annectens
Life restoration of Edmontosaurus annectensImage credit: Dani Navarro.
” Identifying the origin of boring sores on fossil bone is frequently hard, and numerous are thought about tooth traces, in spite of most likely and more parsimonious etiologies,”stated Loma Linda University paleontologist Bethania Siviero and associates stated.
“Much of this confusion originates from tooth trace requirements that are uncertain when the context for the sores is ruled out.”
“Mistaken recognition of tooth traces has actually resulted in deceiving analyses of animal habits.”
“Our research study of tooth traces on fossil bones seriously examines previous requirements.”
In their research study, Dr. Siviero and co-authors analyzed 3,013 bones excavated in between 1997 and 2017 from a paleontological website near Hanson Ranch Station in northeastern Wyoming, part of the Lance Formation.
The bones belonged extremely to a single types of big plant-eating hadrosaur, Edmontosaurus annectens
Just a little portion of the bones– thirteen out of 3,013– revealed marks looking like tooth traces.
After closer analysis, consisting of CT scans, the paleontologists figured out that a person of those was not a bite mark at all however a natural physiological function.
A Late Cretaceous face-off in between an adult Nanotyrannus lancensis (left)and 2 juvenile Tyrannosaurus rexwith a sub-adult Tyrannosaurus rex enjoying from a range. Image credit: Jorge Gonzalez.
Of the twelve bones verified to bear real tooth traces– consisting of ribs, vertebrae, a radius and an ulna– 4 maintained unique patterns attributable to 2 recognized ichnospecies, Knethichnus parallelum and Linichnus serratus
By comparing the spacing of these marks to the tooth structure of predators understood to have actually resided in the very same community, the scientists concluded that Tyrannosaurus rex was the most likely source of the bite marks.
The majority of the bitten bones revealed no indications of recovery, recommending the animals were bitten around the time of death or later– proof of scavenging instead of active predation.
The researchers likewise utilized the Wyoming bonebed to fine-tune more comprehensive clinical requirements for determining tooth traces on fossil bones.
“Correctly recognizing bone anxieties and perforations is very important due to the fact that not all of these functions are tooth marks,” they stated.
Their findings were released online today in the journal PLoS ONE
_____
B.C.T. Siviero et al2026. Recognition of tooth traces from a Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Edmontosaurus annectens bonebed in the Lance Formation, Wyoming, U.S.A. PLoS One 21 (7 ): e0351939; doi: 10.1371/ journal.pone.0351939
Find out more
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
