The landscape was full of giants, but the “perfect snack” 150 million years ago came from the smallest steps on the ground.
A reconstructed food web of the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry in southwestern Colorado suggests that baby and juvenile sauropods formed the most frequent prey for meat-eating dinosaurs 150 million years ago.
Scientists combined chemical analysis of tooth enamel, feeding-related scratches, biomechanical models and fossilised stomach contents to map out who ate whom in the late Jurassic ecosystem.
Sauropods dominated the landscape, with at least six species including Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, Supersaurus, Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus and Haplocanthosaurus.
Adults could reach colossal sizes, with Brachiosaurus weighing roughly 60 tons and Diplodocus stretching to around 30 metres.
But their hatchlings emerged from eggs only 30 centimetres wide and were left to fend for themselves.
“These sauropods would have been high in abundance compared to larger adult sauropods and were relatively defenceless and slow-moving, hence easy to catch and a perfect snack,” said paleontologist Cassius Morrison of University College London.
Ecologist Steven Allain of Anglia Ruskin University Writtle noted that protection came only with maturity.
“Adult sauropods relied on their enormous size, long tails and herd behaviour for protection. Unfortunately, this took time, meaning that the smaller individuals hadn't reached that ‘too big to mess with’ stage yet.”
The top theropods included Torvosaurus, Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Marshosaurus and Stokesosaurus. Although large, they still faced severe risks if attempting to bring down an adult sauropod.
“Hunting a healthy adult Brachiosaurus would have been an extremely daunting, high-risk task,” Allain said. “One well-placed tail swing or a simple sideways step could seriously injure or kill a predator.”
Predators therefore focused on juveniles, sick or injured adults, or animals trapped in mud, and also scavenged carcasses left by droughts or floods.
Dry Mesa’s fossil deposit, formed during a drought, preserved an unusually wide range of animals: sauropods, other herbivorous dinosaurs, five major theropods, pterosaurs, crocodyliforms, early mammals, reptiles, fish and insects.
“This deposit was made by a drought, so it’s one of the only places where you get everything, from small lizard-like animals to the largest dinosaurs,” Morrison said.
The surrounding landscape was dominated by open woodland populated by conifers, cycads, ferns and horsetails near rivers and shallow ponds that periodically dried out.
Researchers found more than 12,000 unique food chains within the modelled ecosystem, revealing a tightly linked network rather than a simple top-down predator hierarchy.
“Sauropods emerged from this analysis as central components of this network,” Allain said, underscoring how even the largest animals on Earth were deeply woven into the balance of Jurassic life.
Russia's health watchdog said on Tuesday that no cases of plague had b...
An Azerbaijani citizen died and another is missing after a cargo ship was attacked by a drone in the Black Sea, near the coast of Romania on Monday...
Azerbaijan is seeking to attract more European visitors by improving air connectivity and raising its profile as an international tourism des...
Australian counterterrorism authorities are examining the links of the co-pilot accused of attacking the captain and attempting to take control of a flydubai flight bound for Israel. Authorities in New Zealand have also said they are investigating reports the suspect had spent time in that country.
Russia's health watchdog said on Tuesday that no cases of plague had been detected among anyone who had come into contact with a Siberian plague institute laboratory worker who died last week, and locals said their lives had barely been disrupted.
Right-wing Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro will face leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a runoff of the presidential election later this month, after he exceeded expectations in Sunday's first-round vote with a slight lead over the incumbent.
Candidates elected to Bosnia and Herzegovina's three-member presidency declared victory after preliminary unofficial results showed Denis Becirovic leading the Bosniak seat, Darijana Filipovic ahead in the Croat seat and Zeljka Cvijanovic likely retaining the Serb seat.
An Azerbaijani citizen died and another is missing after a cargo ship was attacked by a drone in the Black Sea, near the coast of Romania on Monday, 5 October, Baku's Foreign Ministry has said.
OpenAI and Anthropic told Australian parliament on Tuesday they would welcome laws requiring them to report data breaches carried out by their AI agents, acknowledging the decision to notify authorities was currently at their discretion.
Most people meet artificial intelligence (AI) through a phone. It suggests the next word, sorts the photos, flags the odd charge on a bank card. But the technology has been quietly moving into places where mistakes cost more: the systems that run banks, hospitals, businesses and government offices.
A four-person crew aboard SpaceX's Crew-13 mission, consisting of two U.S. astronauts, a Canadian astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut, arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday (1 October), for a long-duration science mission focused on human health and performance in orbit.
The European Space Agency (ESA), Airbus and European partners have put a six-wheeled Mars rover prototype through its paces in Spain’s Tabernas desert, simulating conditions expected on a future mission to the Red Planet.
A report released by cybersecurity firm Asymmetric Security says AI agents took active steps to erase traces of their actions after illegally accessing government websites.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment