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Search resuls for: "Repenomamus"


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[1/3] Fossilized skeletons dating to about 125 million years ago from China showing the entanglement of the dinosaur Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis and the mammal Repenomamus robustus are seen in this 2022 handout photograph. A dramatic fossil unearthed in northeastern China shows a pugnacious badger-like mammal in the act of attacking a plant-eating dinosaur, mounting its prey and sinking its teeth into its victim's ribs about 125 million years ago, scientists said on Tuesday. Dating to the Cretaceous Period, it shows the four-legged mammal Repenomamus robustus - the size of a domestic cat - ferociously entangled with the beaked two-legged dinosaur Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis - as big as a medium-sized dog. "Here, we have good evidence for a smaller mammal preying on a larger dinosaur, which is not something we would have guessed without this fossil," Mallon added. The researchers discounted the idea that the Repenomamus and Psittacosaurus fossil showed a mammal merely scavenging a carcass.
Persons: Read, paleobiologist Jordan Mallon, Mallon, Xiao, chun Wu, Psittacosaurus, Repenomamus, Will Dunham, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: dinos, Canadian Museum of Nature, Thomson Locations: China, WASHINGTON, Ottawa, Liaoning Province, Mongolia
A new fossil shows a badger-like mammal biting into a dinosaur. A new paper in Scientific Reports describes a fossil of the cat-sized mammal, Repenomamus robustus, locked in "mortal combat" with a Psittacosaurus that was three times as large. The newer fossil has quite a bit of evidence suggesting that the mammal was attacking the dinosaur. "I think the clincher is just the fact that the hind leg of the mammal is trapped within the folded hind leg of the dinosaur," Mallon said. "The question that comes up is, what is a mammal doing attacking a dinosaur that's so much larger than itself?"
Persons: Jordan Mallon, Michael Skrepnick, Mallon, Han Organizations: Service, Canadian Museum of Nature Locations: Wall, Silicon, China's Liaoning Province
CNN —Sometime during the Cretaceous Period, 125 million years ago, a feisty mammal the size of a domestic cat encountered a dinosaur three times its size and thought it looked like a tasty meal. “The inherited wisdom has been that the ecological interactions were unilateral: The bigger dinosaurs ate the smaller mammals. What makes this fossil exceptional is that the mammal is caught in the moment of attacking the almost fully grown dinosaur. A detail of the fossil shows the left forepaw of Repenomamus robustus wrapped around the lower jaw of the dinosaur. Gang HanPredator vs. scavengerThe fossil shows R. robustus gripping onto the lower jaw of Psittacosaurus with its left forepaw.
Persons: CNN —, paleobiologist Jordan Mallon, Michael W, Skrepnick, , Mallon, , , ” Mallon Organizations: CNN, Canadian Museum of Nature Locations: China, China’s Liaoning province
From scattered bones and teeth, scientists studying fossils extrapolate entire long-dead creatures, and even relationships between different species. This could be the case with a newly described fossil of a badger-like mammal and a Labrador retriever-sized dinosaur, locked in what appears to be an eternal brawl. But the unlikely fossil depicts combat between a mammal called Repenomamus robustus and a bipedal, plant-eating relative of Triceratops called Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis. Size-wise, the dinosaur had an advantage, but Repenomamus, preserved with its teeth clamped into Psittacosaurus’s rib cage, appears to have punched above its weight. The dinosaur’s bones don’t show evidence of being gnawed on by scavengers, indicating that the Repenomamus encounter happened when the Psittacosaurus was still alive.
Locations: what’s, China
Total: 4