An illustration of Repenomamus sinking its teeth into Psittacosaurus.
Illustration: C opyright 2023 Michael W. Skrepnick / courtesy of Canadian Museum of Nature
About 125 million years ago, a young mammal about the size of a possum bit down on the side of a beaked dinosaur nearly three times its size. The animals died like that, entangled and at odds with each other, a fossilized tableau of the dinosaurian-mammalian power shift that would finally come about 60 million years later.
Those are the certainties of the Cretaceous Period exchange that were encased in time until this week, when a team of paleontologists revealed the stunning fossil in a paper published in Scientific Reports.
The ancient creatures were a Repenomamus robustus, a carnivorous mammal, and a Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis, a beaked, bipedal dinosaur that looks like a cross between a parrot and a lizard (that’s literally what it’s name means, too). The R. robustus is nearly complete, just missing the tip of its tail, and is 18.39 inches (46.7 cm) long. The Psittacosaurus is 47.1 inches (119.6cm) long.
“Almost without exception, dinosaurs were larger than mammals,” Jordan Mallon, a paleobiologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa and co-author of the study, told Gizmodo in an email. “The working assumption has therefore been that dinosaur-mammal interactions were one-way, which is to say that the larger dinosaurs always ate the smaller mammals.”
“This new fossil reveals that these ancient food webs were a little more complete than we might have otherwise assumed, and that mammals were occasionally capable of eating even near fully grown dinosaurs,” he added.
Mallon’s team believes that the two animals died mid-conflict, when a volcanic mudflow ensnared the creatures and buried them. Because the Psittacosaurus didn’t show evidence of being bitten elsewhere, the researchers concluded that the mammal was indeed preying on a live dinosaur rather than scavenging a carcass.
Despite being soft tissue, that specimen’s cloaca was remarkably preserved thanks to the preservation conditions in Liaoning, China, the region in which it was found. The newly announced fossil was also found in Liaoning, in 2012, west of the village Lujiatun.
The cloaca and the new fossil are both part of the Jehol Biota, a fossil-rich swathe of northeast China with unique preservation conditions. In the paper, the researchers note that fossil forgeries have been reported from the region previously, but given the entanglement of the two creatures in the new fossil, they believed the fossil was genuine.
To be sure, they studied the place where the Repenomamus bit into the Psittacosauris, and concluded that, based on how the mammal’s teeth sunk into the dinosaur’s ribs, the fossil was genuine.
Mallon told Gizmodo that while it’s possible Repenomamus hunted in packs, there’s no evidence to support that idea, and the individual Repenomamus that met its end gum-deep in a Psittacosaurus midriff was capable of taking on such dinosaurs on its own.
The fossil is not just amazing for the state of its preservation, but of its subject matter: interactions between ancient mammals and dinosaurs. Fossilized evidence of such interactions aren’t common, yet 2023 has now seen two such events; earlier this year, a different team of researchers found a Microraptor zhaoinus with a small mammal’s foot in its mouth. That fossil was found—you may have guessed it—in northeast China’s Jehol Biota.
“As productive as the fossil beds of the Lujiatun area are, there are still many unanswered questions about this ancient ecosystem,” Mallon said. “There’s a tendency for those fossil beds to preserve only the small animals that were around at the time. Presumably, the bigger dinosaurs were able to escape the volcanic mudslides that the smaller animals fell victim to, so I would love to know more about the big animals living in that area, which is going to require continued prospecting.”
Prospect on, then, paleontologists. The most intimate windows into deep time show how ancient creatures interacted, not just how they looked. You can now strike “Mammals Taking on Dinosaurs More Than Twice Their Size” off your 2023 bingo card.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
