"I've never seen a fossil like this before," Dr Mallon said. The mammal is perched on the dinosaur, its paws gripping the reptile's jaw and a hind limb while its teeth plunge into the dinosaur's rib cage. The fossil, described in the journal Scientific Reports on Tuesday, shows two creatures from around 125 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period.Įven though the mammal is much smaller, researchers believe it was in the process of attacking the dinosaur when they were both caught in the volcanic flow, said study author Jordan Mallon, a palaeobiologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Reporting in Biology Letters, Steve Brusatte, Professor Michael Benton, and colleagues at the University of Bristol show that dinosaurs did not proliferate immediately after they. Steve Brusatte would like to thank the following individuals: my two academic advisors, Paul Sereno and Mike Benton, for constant support and encouragement. "It does seem like this is a prehistoric hunt, captured in stone, like a freeze frame," said University of Edinburgh palaeontologist Steve Brusatte, who was not involved with the study. The find comes from a site known as "China's Pompeii", where mud and debris from long-ago volcanoes buried creatures in their tracks. The fossil shows a badger-like creature chomping down on a small, beaked dinosaur, their skeletons intertwined.
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