“There’s a vertical plunging bite, then an oblique cut as the animal closes its mouth as it draws its head backwards.”This may be the way all meat-eating dinosaurs ate. When the angle drifted away from the scratches, the models suggested Troodon’s teeth began to break. “Struggling prey can really exert a lot of uncontrollable force on the teeth at angles that aren’t really ideal,” Wilkinson said. The study goes a long way to explaining how different dinosaurs filled different niches in their ancient ecosystems. It’s one of the first times such techniques have been applied to meat-eating dinosaurs, Wilkinson said.

Source: National Post April 26, 2018 15:56 UTC