Seems dangerous to infer too much about the general behavior of entire species based on the observed behavior captured in two individuals at the moment they were being entombed in the lava flow from a volcanic eruption.
Like assuming that based on some skeletons found under a volcanic ash flow that the normal behavior of humans was running with your hands in the air and screaming really loudly.
This single group of humans almost always assumed the fetal position. Fortunately we were able to get a glimpse of this because they were captured in a lava flow. We may never know why they did that.
It was a mud flow. It likely came on extremely fast while they were distracted by their life and death struggle, and not necessarily during a dramatic eruption.
Additionally, it's a pretty solid prior to assume that, when we find rapidly forming fossils like this, the behaviors they capture were common behaviors. Fossil formation is rare, so a fossil capturing a rare behavior is pretty darn unlikely. A behavior would have to be ellicted many, many times to have a likely chance of being preserved in a fossil.
Surely they exist, and this could be one of them, but until we find evidence to the contrary our best guess should be that this was a common behavior.
> Experts revealed the 125m-year-old fossil that froze in time after being taken on by a small mammal a third of its size. They are tangled together, the mammal’s teeth sunk into the beaked dinosaur’s ribs, its left paw clasping the beast’s lower jaw.
I'm pretty sure my little dog would do something similar if she encountered a wild boar in the forest. I'm quite sure that if I were successfully chased down by a velociraptor, I would not just lay down and wait to be eaten.
> Researchers said the discovery challenged a long-held view of early mammals as “fodder” for dinosaurs.
I don't really get how that "challenges" any view at all. As if dinosaurs never got bitten nor scratched by stuff they were trying to eat. And with an erupting volcano nearby, I'd probably fight harder just for the hell of it and to mess with the palaeontologists.
Velociraptors were roughly turkey sized. I doubt one could eat a healthy human. The Jurassic Park "raptors" were badge-engineered Deinonychus.
There's a smaller predator, larger prey phenomenon I find fascinating, and it has to do with how a modern dinosaur -- the peregrine falcon -- takes its prey. It literally falcon-punches its victim -- diving at high speed to strike with a closed talon. It can make a meal of a bird about twice its size this way, though usually it feeds on pigeons, other small birds, and the occasional small reptile or mammal.
Their noodle necks would only be strong enough to draw blood and maybe slowly tear flesh. They looked to rely on their razor like teeth more than jaw strength. A human could beat them with kick.
Anyone says they have a strong bite doesn't pay attention to other animals with similar jaws. Crocodiles for example can do 3700 PSI but is supported by a rigid neck and doesn't have to deal with the weight to support its jaws. This is also support by a jaw snapping mechanism. You could effectively hold a crocodiles mouth shut with no force at all. This would say the Jarasic Park ones had 1000 PSI, but real life ones 100 PSI and the teeth did all the work. Yeah I think humans have a stronger jaw, further the mouth extends from the jaw the more muscle it needs.
Looked up a caiman bite force it about 400 PSI. There are some that can do more but it makes sense crocodile bite force is how much it can do with its weight. Slightly larger than a chicken Dino isn't going to compete with a caiman.
Are horses and cows herbivores or carnivores? You'll probably say they're herbivores, but there are plenty of videos of them eating small animals (like baby chicks).
But Brusatte said there remained some legitimate concerns about the integrity of the fossil. “There have been doctored fossils from this part of the world before, and the scientists did not dig up this specimen themselves. The skeletons are no doubt genuine, but I suppose the poses of the bones could have been altered, although I have no direct evidence for this,” he said.
The downstream effects of a post-truth post-trust era.
> The downstream effects of a post-truth post-trust era.
All this era has shown us, is that we should never have been relying on trust in anything even close to science. Trusting people to put the truth their own career advancement is how we got into this mess with the replication crisis.
You can watch videos of Jaguar going into the water and fishing out cayman. Why wouldn’t it be the same for dinosaurs? It’s only a matter of size and strength otherwise no taxonomy is magically safe from any other.
Otoh with the mammal smaller like that it seems maybe like it could be more self defense or trying to distract a predator from their young or something other then the mammal being the predator..
Pretty sure it would have gone both (all) ways where the opportunity arose just as it does between today's animals. I doubt people truely think that only dinosaurs were top predators across all sizes, groups and timeframes.
Yes, there is a reason: “The lack of bite marks on the dinosaur skeleton, the position of the mammal atop the dinosaur, and the grasping and biting actions of the mammal, collectively signal that the mammal was preying on the weakened dinosaur when the two were suddenly entombed by a volcanic debris flow,”
Can we tell whether the mammal was actually trying to take down a dinosaur, or it was merely scavenging on a (nearly) dead dinosaur? Signs of resistance on either of them?
It is possible that the mammal was scavenging the carcass of the dinosaur when the two became buried. This proposed scenario would account for the large size of the dinosaur relative to the mammal (terrestrial predators usually favour prey that are not much larger than themselves, particularly when hunting alone), and the fact that the mammal was biting the ribs of the dinosaur when it died, which would otherwise have been difficult to access (but not impossible—see below) on a living prey item. However, while plausible, we cite three lines of evidence that challenge this hypothesis. First, the bones of the dinosaur are otherwise devoid of tooth marks, which are commonly left by carnivorous mammals while scavenging. Second, it seems unlikely that the two animals would have become so entangled, were the dinosaur dead prior to the arrival of the mammal. Third, the scavenging scenario does not predict the position of the mammal atop the dinosaur, since the mammal could presumably just as easily have eaten the dinosaur from ground level.
We propose instead that the two animals were buried in an act of predation on the part of the mammal, only for both to have been entombed by a sudden lahar-type volcanic debris flow (Fig. 2). This hypothesis would explain the entwined nature of the skeletons, wherein the left hindfoot of the mammal became trapped within the folded left leg of the dinosaur when it collapsed to the ground. It would also account for the lack of tooth marks and other indications of scavenging on the dinosaur’s skeleton, and for the mammal’s position atop the dinosaur, as though to subdue its weakened prey.
Readit News
Like assuming that based on some skeletons found under a volcanic ash flow that the normal behavior of humans was running with your hands in the air and screaming really loudly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lahar
Surely they exist, and this could be one of them, but until we find evidence to the contrary our best guess should be that this was a common behavior.
I appreciate if they want to posit ideas, but so often there’s this tone of absoluteness to them.
I wonder if part of it is just the desire to make one’s discipline more exciting.
I'm pretty sure my little dog would do something similar if she encountered a wild boar in the forest. I'm quite sure that if I were successfully chased down by a velociraptor, I would not just lay down and wait to be eaten.
> Researchers said the discovery challenged a long-held view of early mammals as “fodder” for dinosaurs.
I don't really get how that "challenges" any view at all. As if dinosaurs never got bitten nor scratched by stuff they were trying to eat. And with an erupting volcano nearby, I'd probably fight harder just for the hell of it and to mess with the palaeontologists.
"The victim of its attack was Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis, a bipedal, plant-eating beaked dinosaur"
It doesnt fully exclude the "random attack" behaviour, but makes it more unlikely.
There's a smaller predator, larger prey phenomenon I find fascinating, and it has to do with how a modern dinosaur -- the peregrine falcon -- takes its prey. It literally falcon-punches its victim -- diving at high speed to strike with a closed talon. It can make a meal of a bird about twice its size this way, though usually it feeds on pigeons, other small birds, and the occasional small reptile or mammal.
Anyone says they have a strong bite doesn't pay attention to other animals with similar jaws. Crocodiles for example can do 3700 PSI but is supported by a rigid neck and doesn't have to deal with the weight to support its jaws. This is also support by a jaw snapping mechanism. You could effectively hold a crocodiles mouth shut with no force at all. This would say the Jarasic Park ones had 1000 PSI, but real life ones 100 PSI and the teeth did all the work. Yeah I think humans have a stronger jaw, further the mouth extends from the jaw the more muscle it needs.
Looked up a caiman bite force it about 400 PSI. There are some that can do more but it makes sense crocodile bite force is how much it can do with its weight. Slightly larger than a chicken Dino isn't going to compete with a caiman.
It’s a series of “hops.”
As for nasty small critters, look at pretty much anything in the mustelid (weasel) family. Pound for pound, the nastiest critters on Earth.
Wolverines have been known to hunt caribou.
And, of course, we have the honey badger: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg
Are horses and cows herbivores or carnivores? You'll probably say they're herbivores, but there are plenty of videos of them eating small animals (like baby chicks).
The downstream effects of a post-truth post-trust era.
All this era has shown us, is that we should never have been relying on trust in anything even close to science. Trusting people to put the truth their own career advancement is how we got into this mess with the replication crisis.
Dead Comment
(And of course I pretty immediately felt the voting feedback on why. So much pride in a dictatorship; that is also weird.)
Otoh with the mammal smaller like that it seems maybe like it could be more self defense or trying to distract a predator from their young or something other then the mammal being the predator..
And would this be a surprise, other than providing an interesting specimen?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-37545-8
It is possible that the mammal was scavenging the carcass of the dinosaur when the two became buried. This proposed scenario would account for the large size of the dinosaur relative to the mammal (terrestrial predators usually favour prey that are not much larger than themselves, particularly when hunting alone), and the fact that the mammal was biting the ribs of the dinosaur when it died, which would otherwise have been difficult to access (but not impossible—see below) on a living prey item. However, while plausible, we cite three lines of evidence that challenge this hypothesis. First, the bones of the dinosaur are otherwise devoid of tooth marks, which are commonly left by carnivorous mammals while scavenging. Second, it seems unlikely that the two animals would have become so entangled, were the dinosaur dead prior to the arrival of the mammal. Third, the scavenging scenario does not predict the position of the mammal atop the dinosaur, since the mammal could presumably just as easily have eaten the dinosaur from ground level.
We propose instead that the two animals were buried in an act of predation on the part of the mammal, only for both to have been entombed by a sudden lahar-type volcanic debris flow (Fig. 2). This hypothesis would explain the entwined nature of the skeletons, wherein the left hindfoot of the mammal became trapped within the folded left leg of the dinosaur when it collapsed to the ground. It would also account for the lack of tooth marks and other indications of scavenging on the dinosaur’s skeleton, and for the mammal’s position atop the dinosaur, as though to subdue its weakened prey.