Dubbed Microraptor, it was an opportunistic predator that was believed to feed on fish, birds, and lizards, but its last meal reveals another target.
New Delhi,UPDATED: Dec 26, 2022 15:13 IST
Life reconstruction of Microraptor eating a small mammal. (Artwork: Hans Larsson.
By India Today Web Desk: They once flew in the skies of modern-day China, before they went extinct, but the discovery of their fossils has revealed that the creature, a dinosaur, was a generalist carnivore in the ancient ecosystem of dinosaurs. Researchers have now found a unique fossil that reveals its place in the food chain.
Dubbed Microraptor, it was an opportunistic predator that was believed to feed on fish, birds, and lizards, but its last meal reveals it targeted mammals as well. Researchers found a complete mammal foot inside the rib cage of the small, feathered dinosaur, making it the 21st such discovery.
The findings of the study have been published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, which states that although the various known stomach contents would be plausible prey items based on size, there is no clear evidence that any of them were predated rather than scavenged, and Microraptor likely did both and foraged in multiple habitats.
“At first, I couldn’t believe it. There was a tiny rodent-like mammal foot about a centimeter long perfectly preserved inside a Microraptor skeleton. These finds are the only solid evidence we have about the food consumption of these long-extinct animals – and they are exceptionally rare,” McGill University Professor Hans Larsson, said about the find.
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The dinosaur, feathered with wings on both its arms and legs, was about the size of a crow and one of the smallest of its species. The first fossil of the species was discovered in the early 2000s in Liaoning, China. Paleontologists had known about its diet over the years, which was limited to fish, a bird, and a lizard, but the new find adds mammals to that list.
“This new find adds a small mammal to their diet, suggesting these dinosaurs were opportunistic and not picky eaters,” says Larsson. He adds that knowing they were not specialized to any particular food is a big deal, and the scientific community believes that this could be the first evidence of a generalist carnivore in dinosaur ecosystems.
Generalist predators are important stabilizers in today’s ecosystems, like foxes and crows, because they can feed on several species that may have differing population abundances.
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