Allosaurus could be cannibals – that is the conclusion reached by researchers after findings in the career Mygatt-Moore in Colorado, where he unearthed the bones of the upper Jurassic predatory theropod of the allosaur with teeth marks on them, owned by allosaurus or close to them species.
As reported in PLoS ONE, ancient predators probably chews the bones of dead relatives or even hunted them in the event of food shortage.
American paleontologists led by Stephanie Drumheller of the University of Tennessee and Julia McHugh from Colorado Mesa University have studied the nature trails on quarry 2368 found in the bones. Most likely, in the upper Jurassic in this place was periodically drying up the pond.
The teeth marks were recorded on 684 bone, which is about 29 percent of the total, significantly more than in other dinosaur communities of the same age (usually 14%).
Most of the damaged remains belonged to herbivorous dinosaurs, the sauropods, which ate large predators. But the bones of the latter is also found teeth marks, first of all, the allosaurus. Until now it was believed that the theropods, to the order which includes allosaurus, were preferred mainly meat place of mascara.
The nature of injuries paleontologists have identified who most often bite and gnaw the bones. Bite marks on them belonged to allosaurus, including fragments of the skeleton of the allosaurus.
The researchers decided that 152 million years ago, these birds have resorted to cannibalism, and, finding in Colorado – the first evidence of cannibalism in allosaurus. This behavior of animals reflects a significant lack of food in the ecosystem at that time.
