I noticed a CanWest news story in the Lethbridge Herald today about an interesting fossil find in Alberta that suggest that tyrannosaurs sometimes invited each out for lunch {or at least met for lunch: edited to please a picky scientist}. Here is a link to story at the Edmonton Journal.
Edmonton Journal
Phil Bell, a grad student at the University of Alberta.
A tyrannosaur jawbone was dug up in Dinosaur Provincial Park in 1996 with part of a tooth embedded in it. The tooth turned out be from a different tyrannosaur.
The pieces were brought to the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, and there they sat for more than a decade, until Bell came by for a visit. When one of the technicians showed him the specimen, he was immediately intrigued. While bite marks are common on dinosaur bones, finding a tooth of a predator in its prey is extremely rare.
“There have been only three instances,” Bell said. “Here, what was really interesting was that it was the bone of a tyrannosaur with the tooth of a tyrannosaur. So that brings into question the behaviour of this group.”
The actual genus {edited from “species” to please the scientifically literate} of the lunched upon tyrannosaur was Gorgosaurus or Daspletosaurus, both of which were smaller than the more famous T. rex.
Gorgosaurus from wikipedia, at the Houston Natural History Museum
According to Wikipedia, all known Gorgosaurus libratus specimens are from Alberta’s DinosaurPark Formation which is around 76.5 to 74 million years ago. According the newspaper story, it was this dating that suggested to the researchers what species of tyrannosaur may have been on the menu.
Dinosaur Provincial Park near Brooks Alberta is a World Heritage Site. See their website here. The Royal Tyrrell Museum is also world class. I’ve posted some of my pictured from my trip in 2008 to the RTM here, but here are a few of their Tyrannosaur displays.
Now, all this talk of possible dinosaurian cannibalism and big scary toothed critters should be the cause of great humility and shame for one and all, because, as young earth scientists all know, T. Rex and all the other dinosaurs were complete vegetarians in the Garden of Eatin’
www.classbrain.com
Tyrannosaurs had to give up eating melons because Adam and Eve ate an apple. I’m not sure the logic of that, but there you go.
Technorati Tags: fossils, paleontology, T.+rex, tyrannosaur, Dinosaur+Provincial+Park, Royal+Tyrell+Museum, gorgosaurus, daspletosaurus, Phil+Bell
October 9, 2009 at 7:32 am
Dr. Jim …
Laughed myself silly reading this post this morning. Artfully done. Wonder if the fundie earth scientists will ever uncover a human skull with a T-Rex bone embedded? Oh, and I hear there is a frost warning in purgatory this morning!
As Mark Twain said … “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”
Cheers
Howie
October 9, 2009 at 8:21 am
Good to hear from you again, Howard! I’m glad that you are still reading this mess. I saw that Melonosaurus on Google Images and had to include it! I would try to make one (it would look good for Halloween with a little pumpkin in its mouth, but I would probably sever and artery with the knife.
Speaking of blinkin’ frost warnings, there’s snow all over the flippin’ place down here! This is scandalous!
October 9, 2009 at 9:05 am
This proves it! Fundies are just like T-rexes, eating each other for breakfast! Maybe old Noah had one too many T-rex steak on the ark leading to the present dearth of the gentile giants.
October 9, 2009 at 9:14 am
I think that theory will pass pear review, Dr. Wiggins! Hell, T. Rexs eventually started passing up on the pears…
October 9, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Maybe it’s an example of the dinosaur version of the Abel-Cain story! Didya think of that? Huh? Didya? Of course not.
Would a T-steak taste like chicken? Only if birds descended from dinosaurs I guess! Imagine the leftovers!
October 10, 2009 at 2:48 am
Great blog topic and news, as usual, Jim. Just a few quibbles, for your readers who want to talk the talk…
1) “The actual species of the lunched upon tyrannosaur was Gorgosaurus or Daspletosaurus, both of which were smaller than the more famous T. rex.”
You mean genera.
2) “Now, all this talk of possible dinosaurian cannibalism…”
It’s not clear that they were necessarily the same species. (But maybe.) No doubt, different species of tyrannosaur co-existed. It’s not cannibalism unless the food item is the same species as the predator. If you eat the meat of other hominids (yes, we are in the same taxonomic family), such as chimps or gorillas, you are not a cannibal (but I am not recommending it).
3) It’s not clear that this was a case of predation. Maybe the tooth came out during feeding on carrion. In that case they didn’t invite each other out for lunch. Maybe one could say “met for lunch”.
4) If the Creation Mooseeum is right, people might have been hiding in the bushes, and hit the biting tyrannosaur on the head as he was biting, and caused the tooth to stick. Then this would be proof of young earth. Additional proof would be the footprints (i.e., any depression or variation in the mud) around the fossil site. If this happened, it would be rare. It is rare, so they will conclude that this is proof. If you recognize and affirm the fallacy, forget about it – it is a drop in the ocean of fallacies in evidence at the Creation Mooseeum, and one more will not impress them.
October 10, 2009 at 9:10 am
I see your quibbles, and respond thusly:
1) I corrected the specified specious “species” to a generally generic “genera”
2) I did say “possible cannibalism”
3) corrected to include the “met for lunch”
4) A supplementary point: And the fact that we are here is also p(r)oof, Goddidit. I haven’t had my coffee yet. The wind blew last night. I don’t see any Boeing 747s. See, Goddidit
October 10, 2009 at 4:36 pm
I sent a second note a minute later that seems not have made it:
Oops, you mean “genus”.
October 14, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Fair Eden of creationist lore! Where sharks hungered solely for seaweed and carefully spat out even the tiniest fish they found therein. Where spiders assisted in the release of insects that flew haphazardly into their webs. Where monkeys swung wildly from tree to tree, but never crushed an insect on a branch nor upset an egg in a nest. And where Brontosauruses dodged ants, worms and small mammals while taking each gargantuan step.
October 14, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Ah, I see you’ve read the travel brochures!