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    11 year ago

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    The revelation makes this discovery particularly exciting, said co-lead author Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist and associate professor at the University of Calgary in Alberta.

    The tyrannosaur in question, a young Gorgosaurus libratus, would have weighed about 772 pounds (350 kilograms) — less than a horse — and reached 13 feet (4 meters) in length at the time of death.

    That the tyrannosaur’s stomach contents were preserved wasn’t immediately obvious, but staff at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta, noticed small protruding bones when preparing the fossil in the lab and removed a rock within its rib cage to take a closer look.

    “Large, robust tyrannosaurs like T. rex have bite forces strong enough to hit bone when eating, and so we know they bit into megaherbivores like Triceratops,” Schroeder said via email.

    She said that scientists have previously hypothesized that young tyrannosaurs had different diets from fully developed adults, but the fossil find marks the first time researchers have direct evidence.

    There are relatively few small and midsize dinosaurs in the fossil record, particularly in the Mid- to Late Cretaceous Period — something paleontologists have determined is due to the hunting activities of young tyrannosaurs.


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