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07-16-2013, 03:18 PM
Researchers Discover Dinosaur's Tooth in Spine of Giant Plant Eater That Lived Long After the Attack
By
ROBERT LEE HOTZ
A fossil from a failed kill 65 million years ago offers the first direct evidence that Tyrannosaurus rex did indeed hunt its prey, putting to rest recent arguments that the massive dinosaur may have been a scavenger, scientists said Monday.
In the sandstone of South Dakota, researchers discovered the distinctive crown of a Tyrannosaurus tooth, serrated like a steak knife, wedged in the spine of a 4-ton plant-eater called a hadrosaurus that once roamed the American West. The backbone, moreover, had grown over the tooth, indicating the animal had healed and likely lived for years after the encounter, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Enlarge Image
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-YE708_fang07_D_20130715152744.jpgFallon E. Cohen
Paleontologists Robert DePalma, left, and David Burnham hold a fossil specimen.
"This is smoking-gun evidence that, in fact, Tyrannosaurus did attack animals and did not just go after carrion," said paleontologist Mark Norell at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was not involved in the find.
Read the rest here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323664204578607911233796672.html
By
ROBERT LEE HOTZ
A fossil from a failed kill 65 million years ago offers the first direct evidence that Tyrannosaurus rex did indeed hunt its prey, putting to rest recent arguments that the massive dinosaur may have been a scavenger, scientists said Monday.
In the sandstone of South Dakota, researchers discovered the distinctive crown of a Tyrannosaurus tooth, serrated like a steak knife, wedged in the spine of a 4-ton plant-eater called a hadrosaurus that once roamed the American West. The backbone, moreover, had grown over the tooth, indicating the animal had healed and likely lived for years after the encounter, the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Enlarge Image
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-YE708_fang07_D_20130715152744.jpgFallon E. Cohen
Paleontologists Robert DePalma, left, and David Burnham hold a fossil specimen.
"This is smoking-gun evidence that, in fact, Tyrannosaurus did attack animals and did not just go after carrion," said paleontologist Mark Norell at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was not involved in the find.
Read the rest here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323664204578607911233796672.html