Paleontologists were shocked to see intestinal preservation in this raptor fossil ⬇️
More than 100 million years ago, a fearsome birdlike dinosaur was swept into a lake and transformed into an exceptional fossil in what is now China, preserving one of the few intact gut remnants known from nonavian dinosaurs, a new study finds.
The finding offers valuable insight into both bird and dinosaur gut evolution, giving researchers a clearer window into dinnertime during the Lower Cretaceous . Dromaeosaurids — also known as"raptors" — like D. wangi were mostly small, feathered and carnivorous. This group roamed the Earth from the mid-Jurassic period until the end of the Cretaceous period . Their ranks included some of the most famous pop culture dinosaurs, such as Velociraptor and Deinonychus.
Fossilization conditions have to be just right in order to prevent decay-causing bacteria from eating away delicate soft tissues, such as cartilage and organs. The newly described D. wangi specimen was likely buried very quickly under soft, fine sediments at the bottom of a body of water in what is now the Jehol Biota — an area known for well-preserved fossils in modern-day Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region in northern China.
The remarkable preservation provides insight into how D. wangi lived, and what it could have eaten. From what the researchers could tell, its intestinal tract appears similar to the very few other remnants known from meat-eating dinosaurs, suggesting that more omnivorous dromaeosaurid gut plans didn't evolve until after the dawn of modern birds following the Cretaceous period. It also appears that D. wangi ate small prey, such as mammals , fish, other small dinosaurs and possibly amphibians.
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