MALI: When food was scarce 66 million years ago, tyrannosaurs did not hesitate to eat a member of their own family in order to survive, a new study revealed. Researchers from the Geological Society of America (GSA) discovered distinctive teeth marks on new fossil bones that suggest the large carnivores might have also been cannibals.
“We were out in Wyoming digging up dinosaurs in the Lance Formation,” Matthew McLain, a paleontologist from Loma Linda University in California, said in a news release. “Someone found a tyrannosaur bone that was broken at both ends. It was covered in grooves. They were very deep grooves.”
After further analyzing the grooves, researchers concluded they were made by a large animal that pulled the flesh from the bone in a perpendicular direction. This is the same way humans eat meat from a chicken wing, the release noted.
One groove located at the larger end of the bone stood out to the researchers because it contained several smaller parallel groves. This indicates that as the tyrannosaur was pulling meat from the bone they were also turning their head from side to side in order to sever and free it more easily, according to the release.
