Fossil captures moment ancient mammal attacked bigger dinosaur
Dinosaurs are often imagined as the undisputed rulers of planet Earth, but an unusual fossil has captured the moment a mammal attacked a dinosaur.
The fossil dates from 125 million years ago, and captures the moment a carnivorous mammal attacked a large plant-eating dinosaur.
The two creatures were 'frozen in time' by a volcanic eruption.
Dr Jordan Mallon, of the Canadian Museum of Nature, said, "The two animals are locked in mortal combat, intimately intertwined, and it's among the first evidence to show actual predatory behaviour by a mammal on a dinosaur.
"The co-existence of these two animals is not new, but what's new to science through this amazing fossil is the predatory behaviour it shows.”
It challenges the view that dinosaurs had few threats from their mammal contemporaries during the Cretaceous period.
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The rare fossil is now in the collections of the Weihai Ziguang Shi Yan School Museum in China's Shandong Province.
The dinosaur in the well-preserved fossil is identified as a species of Psittacosaurus, which is about the size of a large dog.
Plant-eating psittacosaurs are among the earliest known horned dinosaurs and lived in Asia during the Early Cretaceous, from around 125 to 105 million years ago.
The mammal in the fossil pair is a badger-like animal, called Repenomamus robustus.
Although not large by dinosaur standards, it was among the largest mammals during the Cretaceous period, at a time when mammals had not yet come to dominate the Earth.
Prior to this discovery, paleontologists knew that Repenomamus preyed on dinosaurs including Psittacosaurus because of fossilized baby bones of the herbivore found in the mammal's stomach.
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The fossil was collected in China's Liaoning Province in 2012, and both skeletons are nearly complete.
Their completeness is due to the fact that they come from an area known as the Liujitun fossil beds, which have been dubbed China's Dinosaur Pompeii.
The name refers to the many fossils of dinosaurs, small mammals, lizards and amphibians in the area, animals that were buried suddenly en masse by mudslides and debris following one or more volcanic eruptions.
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