An extraordinary fossil capturing the moment a brave mammal and dinosaur were locked in mortal combat has been unearthed.
The fossil, found in China’s Liaoning Province, is the first proof that some early mammals tried to eat dinosaurs, scientists say.
The research, published in the scientific journal Nature, questions the view that dinosaurs roamed the Earth unchallenged during the Cretaceous period 145 to 66 million years ago.
The attacker has been identified as repenomamus robustus, a badger-like animal measuring around 47cm. It was among the largest mammals during the Cretaceous, at a time when large dinosaurs dominated.
The dino victim is the plant-eating psittacosaurus lujiatunensis, a beaked dinosaur measuring around 120cm.
The fossil shows the mammal’s teeth embedded into the herbivore’s rib cage, suggesting the dinosaur was being attacked when both animals suddenly died.
While it has long been known that the two species coexisted during the Cretaceous, no evidence previously existed of such an attack.
Study author Dr Jordan Mallon, palaeobiologist with the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Canada, said: “The two animals are locked in mortal combat, intimately intertwined, and it’s among the first evidence to show actual predatory behaviour by a mammal on a dinosaur.”
Dr Mallon said: “The coexistence of these two animals is not new, but what’s new to science through this amazing fossil is the predatory behaviour it shows.”
Dinosaurs and mammals coexisted for 230 million years. Although scientists agree they interacted in many ways, direct fossil evidence of these interactions is rare.
Mesozoic mammals who lived 252 to 66 million years ago are commonly shown as having lived in the shadows of the large dinosaurs of the period.
Fossils showing dinosaur stomachs containing the remains of small mammals support this depiction.
But, occasionally, it was the other way around, the study said.
In 2005, scientists found a R robustus fossil with the small bones of a juvenile psittacosaur inside its rib cage.
