These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Exceptionally preserved stomach contents of a young tyrannosaurid reveal an ontogenetic dietary shift in an iconic extinct predator.
    Author: Therrien F, Zelenitsky DK, Tanaka K, Voris JT, Erickson GM, Currie PJ, DeBuhr CL, Kobayashi Y.
    Journal: Sci Adv; 2023 Dec 08; 9(49):eadi0505. PubMed ID: 38064561.
    Abstract:
    Tyrannosaurids were large carnivorous dinosaurs that underwent major changes in skull robusticity and body proportions as they grew, suggesting that they occupied different ecological niches during their life span. Although adults commonly fed on dinosaurian megaherbivores, the diet of juvenile tyrannosaurids is largely unknown. Here, we describe a remarkable specimen of a juvenile Gorgosaurus libratus that preserves the articulated hindlimbs of two yearling caenagnathid dinosaurs inside its abdominal cavity. The prey were selectively dismembered and consumed in two separate feeding events. This predator-prey association provides direct evidence of an ontogenetic dietary shift in tyrannosaurids. Juvenile individuals may have hunted small and young dinosaurs until they reached a size when, to satisfy energy requirements, they transitioned to feeding on dinosaurian megaherbivores. Tyrannosaurids occupied both mesopredator and apex predator roles during their life span, a factor that may have been key to their evolutionary success.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]