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Mammal found with teeth sunk in a much larger dinosaur

52 points by zdw 3y ago

rmk 3y ago
Wow. My mental image was that of tiny vile-like mammals cowering in the undergrowth while the giant reptiles such as dinosaurs roamed the Earth. This discovery changes that image drastically!
andrewflnr 3y ago
> bipedal ceratopsian dinosaur In retrospect, maybe this should not have surprised me, but hey, TIL.
rad_gruchalski 3y ago
The title and the image at the top of the page look like some prehistoric O'Reilly book cover.
RobotCaleb 3y ago
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-37545-8.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-37545-8.pdf
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Looks oddly like something from Ripley's Believe It or Not. So I'm thinking, no, I don't believe it. That fossil is so perfect, so complete. Like it was 3d printed or something.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  > Like it was 3d printed or something. perhaps it was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteoblast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteoblast
- pvaldes 3y ago
  It feels like a weird fossil for sure. The absence of rigor mortis in the mammal is particularly puzzling. Not a single vertebra out of its place. The column seems relaxed. Where are the forces and tendons? The second thing that I noticed is that the bones from both animals lie too close (in my non expert opinion, could be wrong). If somebody grabs a leg with its hand, there is muscle and skin in between. Is expected that the phalanges would remain a little apart from the femur. In the fossil it seems that there is not any space in between. I wouldn't discard the case of a scavenger biting a partially skeletonized body but in that case its arms and legs would lie in different positions. That dinosaur beak could also chop that hand probably. Why is entire?. I don't see any of the expected results of such fight. No broken bones in the mammal it seems. That would happen only if the mammal was poisonous and an insta-killer, but nothing suggests that. And not a single bone crushed or broken by the pressure of the sediment it seems. Not one missing. Is... I wouldn't say fake, but very weird for sure.

52 points by zdw 3y ago

rmk 3y ago

Wow. My mental image was that of tiny vile-like mammals cowering in the undergrowth while the giant reptiles such as dinosaurs roamed the Earth. This discovery changes that image drastically!

andrewflnr 3y ago

> bipedal ceratopsian dinosaur In retrospect, maybe this should not have surprised me, but hey, TIL.

rad_gruchalski 3y ago

The title and the image at the top of the page look like some prehistoric O'Reilly book cover.

RobotCaleb 3y ago

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-37545-8.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-37545-8.pdf

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

Looks oddly like something from Ripley's Believe It or Not. So I'm thinking, no, I don't believe it. That fossil is so perfect, so complete. Like it was 3d printed or something.

jjtheblunt 3y ago
> Like it was 3d printed or something. perhaps it was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteoblast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteoblast
pvaldes 3y ago
It feels like a weird fossil for sure. The absence of rigor mortis in the mammal is particularly puzzling. Not a single vertebra out of its place. The column seems relaxed. Where are the forces and tendons? The second thing that I noticed is that the bones from both animals lie too close (in my non expert opinion, could be wrong). If somebody grabs a leg with its hand, there is muscle and skin in between. Is expected that the phalanges would remain a little apart from the femur. In the fossil it seems that there is not any space in between. I wouldn't discard the case of a scavenger biting a partially skeletonized body but in that case its arms and legs would lie in different positions. That dinosaur beak could also chop that hand probably. Why is entire?. I don't see any of the expected results of such fight. No broken bones in the mammal it seems. That would happen only if the mammal was poisonous and an insta-killer, but nothing suggests that. And not a single bone crushed or broken by the pressure of the sediment it seems. Not one missing. Is... I wouldn't say fake, but very weird for sure.