Snake Preyed on Baby Dinosaurs. An ancient snake has been caught in the act - about to eat a baby dinosaur - 67 million years ago. An extraordinary fossil from India reveals the 3.5-metre predator was coiled around a broken egg in a dinosaur nest.
Next to it was its prey: a newly hatched titanosaur about 50 centimetres long, and two other eggs.
Dhananjay Mohabey, of the Geological Survey of India, who found the fossils, said the activity of the hatchling breaking out of its egg may have attracted the snake to the nest. ''It was such a thrill to discover such a portentous moment frozen in time,'' he said.
Other snake skeletons and dinosaur eggs were also found at the site in Gujarat, suggesting hatchlings were the snakes' preferred food, said a team member, Jason Head, of the University of Toronto.
''It would have been a smorgasbord. Hundreds or thousands of defenceless baby sauropods could have supported an ecosystem of predators during the hatching season.''
Researchers said the creatures appeared to have been quickly entombed in sand and mud, either in a landslide or storm, which then preserved them for 67 million years. Mr Mohabey first unearthed the dinosaur and eggs in the 1980s, but it was not realised until a decade ago by the team co-leader, Jeff Wilson, of the University of Michigan, that a snake skeleton was present with the eggs and baby.
It has taken an international team more than six years to prepare the specimens from the slab and study them. Their results, which provide the first evidence found that snakes ate dinosaurs, are published in the journal PloS Biology.
Unlike today's snakes the ancient one, Sanajeh indicus, did not have a jaw that could open wide so it could eat a hard egg, but it was big enough to swallow a soft baby. Titanosaurs were giant plant eaters that walked on all fours and weighed up to 100 tonnes. ( kompas.com )
Next to it was its prey: a newly hatched titanosaur about 50 centimetres long, and two other eggs.
Take that ... a reconstruction sculpted by Tyler Keillor.
Dhananjay Mohabey, of the Geological Survey of India, who found the fossils, said the activity of the hatchling breaking out of its egg may have attracted the snake to the nest. ''It was such a thrill to discover such a portentous moment frozen in time,'' he said.
Other snake skeletons and dinosaur eggs were also found at the site in Gujarat, suggesting hatchlings were the snakes' preferred food, said a team member, Jason Head, of the University of Toronto.
''It would have been a smorgasbord. Hundreds or thousands of defenceless baby sauropods could have supported an ecosystem of predators during the hatching season.''
Researchers said the creatures appeared to have been quickly entombed in sand and mud, either in a landslide or storm, which then preserved them for 67 million years. Mr Mohabey first unearthed the dinosaur and eggs in the 1980s, but it was not realised until a decade ago by the team co-leader, Jeff Wilson, of the University of Michigan, that a snake skeleton was present with the eggs and baby.
It has taken an international team more than six years to prepare the specimens from the slab and study them. Their results, which provide the first evidence found that snakes ate dinosaurs, are published in the journal PloS Biology.
Unlike today's snakes the ancient one, Sanajeh indicus, did not have a jaw that could open wide so it could eat a hard egg, but it was big enough to swallow a soft baby. Titanosaurs were giant plant eaters that walked on all fours and weighed up to 100 tonnes. ( kompas.com )
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