Tusitala

jtotheizzoe:

Prehistoric Pit of Doom

Fossil digs of places like caves usually hold about a 10:1 ratio of herbivores to carnivores. This is because they were often used as safe havens to store and eat kills. But this Spanish cave seems to have been a true pit of despair for prehistoric carnivores, with far more fossils of hunters than would normally be found. After falling in or walking down, the sabertooths, hyenas and others couldn’t escape, and their bones were buried by thousands of years worth of mudslides.

No one knows exactly what drew them in, but one thing’s for sure: They never left.

Read more at io9. Images from the original article in PLOS One.

(via science-junkie)

rhamphotheca:

Microraptor: A 4-Winged, Fish-Eating Dinosaur

by Nadia Drake

Fossilized guts reveal that Microraptor — a four-winged, flying dinosaur — had an unusual taste for fish. Located near the fossil’s ribs, a mass of fish bones bearing the mark of strong digestive acids suggests the crow-sized reptile’s prey veered from the arboreal to the aquatic.

“There are only two other good examples of dinosaurs with a taste for sushi: the giant, crocodile-like spinosaurs and the tiny compsognathids,” said Scott Persons, from the University of Alberta. “So, no. Fish are not usually considered as staples of a dino’s diet.”

Previous analyses of Microraptor specimens pointed toward prey retrieved from trees: small mammals and birds. But a new analysis, reported Apr. 19 by Persons and colleagues in the journal Evolution, suggests the dinosaur feasted on fish as well. The team based its conclusions on specimen QM V1002, retrieved from northeastern China in an area thought to have been a forested, freshwater lake environment 120 million years ago. Nearly complete, though with a badly crushed skull, the fossil bears traces of the long, dark feathers that have come to distinguish Microraptor. Among the preserved bones and feathers is a lump of bony fish bits that includes fin rays, ribs, vertebrae, and bits of acid-etched fish skull…

(read more: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/04/microraptor-ate-fish/?cid=co7367514)

(photo: Scott Parsons; illustration by the INCREDIBLY TALENTED Emily Willoughby - http://ewilloughby.tumblr.com/ ;)

(via science-junkie)