We can learn a lot about dinosaurs from the fossils they leave behind, but recently a tyrannosaur fossil discovered in 2009 has revealed something a bit unexpected. Paleontologists say they have now found the legs of other bird-like dinosaurs in the stomach of the fossilized creature and they say that has some interesting implications.
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00:00 (gentle music)
00:02 We can learn a lot about dinosaurs
00:05 from the fossils they leave behind.
00:06 But recently, a tyrannosaur fossil discovered in 2009
00:10 has revealed something a bit unexpected,
00:12 namely what it had for lunch.
00:14 Paleontologists say they found the legs
00:16 of other bird-like dinosaurs
00:17 in the stomach of the fossilized creature.
00:19 And they say that has some interesting implications.
00:22 That's because this was an infant Gorgosaurus labratus,
00:25 a type of tyrannosaur,
00:26 one which likely only weighed around 700 pounds.
00:29 They say this is the first evidence
00:30 the creature's diets changed as they got older
00:33 and inevitably bigger.
00:34 In fact, 700 pounds is only around 10% of its final size.
00:38 One of the study's authors had this to say
00:40 about the discovery.
00:41 "They appear to have gone from hunting prey like sitipes,
00:43 "a small fraction of their size as teenagers,
00:45 "to hunting mega herbivore dinosaurs
00:47 "as large or larger than their size as adults."
00:50 This is likely due to how much the Gorgosaurus
00:52 changes over its lifetime,
00:54 growing from a small, narrow-skulled creature
00:56 to a much larger one with bigger teeth
00:58 and more powerful jaw.
00:59 Just one more tidbit of knowledge about a creature
01:01 that hasn't lived in 75 million years.
01:04 (upbeat music)
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