Thaindian News

By Gina Gomez
Apr 20, (THAINDIAN NEWS) In what is being perceived as a major evidence suggesting that predatory dinosaurs hunted their plant eating counterparts, scientists have revealed that the predator Velociraptor has been caught eating the flesh of a plant eating dinosaur. Palaeontologists have discovered the fossil fragments of a dinosaur Protoceratops, which is known to be a herbivore and have found the teeth marks of the predator dinosaur in the plant eating animal’s bones.

Scientists have validated that the teeth of Velociraptor matches with the teeth marks that have been discovered in the herbivore dinosaur’s bones which points out the fact that the predator dinosaur feed on their herbivorous relatives. The fossils that have enabled the scientists to reach the conclusion was unearthed in the year 2008 in Inner Magnolia in the country of China. The fossils comprise of bones of Protoceratops along with the teeth of some other dinosaur which is being speculated to be that of the predatory animal. At the same time, scientists have also stated that the manner in which the bite marks are present in the neck of the herbivorous animal suggest that the predator did not kill the animal but only scavenged on its flesh.

While revealing details about the condition in which the fossil was found, paleontologist David Hone associated with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, China has said that when the fossils were found, they were in an eroded condition and added that if it could be found few months earlier then the specimen would have been in a state to shed more light in the matter.