A rendering of Microraptor zhaoianus. Credit: Ralph Attanasia III
SciTechDaily has a story about the diet of dinosaurs. Microraptor zhaoianus was a small bird like dinosaur that lived between 120 and 125 million years ago in the early Cretaceous Period in what is now northeastern China. A particular specimen, described in a recent study in the journal Vertebrate Paleontology, was found to have eaten a small mammal just before its death.
Previous Microraptor specimens from this area have been found with gut contents of a fish, bird, and lizard, indicating that these small dinosaurs had diverse diets. However, it remains unclear whether Microraptor consumed the contents in a predator-prey relationship or by scavenging. Researchers can only say conclusively that Microraptor was carnivorous.
Sullivan says information about dinosaurs’ diets is a key piece in the puzzle to learning more about what was going on at the time they roamed the Earth.
“We’re slowly gathering pieces of information about these past ecosystems and the animals that inhabited them. So what this discovery does is fill in a little bit of information in that it’s showing the diet of Microraptor was even broader, even more generalist, than we thought previously.”
“That tells us something about this animal and, by extension, tells us that there were generalist carnivores in these ancient ecosystems — that that niche existed.”
