Fossil shows mammal biting into dinosaur: ‘This turns everything upside down’ | Sciences

Chinese and Canadian researchers fossil Find a recording of a mammal biting a dinosaur. According to scientists, this is unique, because it was previously believed that dinosaurs had nothing to fear from mammals.

The fossil was found in 2012 in the coastal province of Liaoning in China, in an area known as the Pompeii of dinosaurs. Both skeletons were found nearly complete. In the eleven years since the discovery, the fossil, which is about 100 to 125 million years old, has been determined to be genuine.

“The two animals fought together, closely intertwined. It’s one of the first evidences of predatory behavior toward a mammal toward a dinosaur,” said researcher Jordan Mallon of the Canadian Museum of Nature. CNN.

It is a mammal the size of a domestic cat. Knowing today, you wouldn’t think this was a big hunter, but at the time the animal was one of the largest mammals. The fossil shows the animal biting a young psittachosaurus – a plant-eating dinosaur.

“We’ve always been taught that bigger dinosaurs ate smaller mammals. This turns everything on its head. It shows that mammals could outrun larger dinosaurs if they were hungry and desperate enough,” says Mallon.