.jpg?20250211')
The young Gorgosaurus knew what it liked for dinner.
About 75 million years ago in what is now Canada’s Alberta province, this fearsome T. Rex cousin set about hunting turkey-sized yearlings of a feathered plant-eating dinosaur called Citipes.
With such prey numerous, the Gorgosaurus could be picky about what it ate. It dismembered the helpless Citipes and swallowed its meaty legs whole, ignoring the rest of the carcass.
Scientists said that they have unearthed fossilised remains of a juvenile Gorgosaurus that was five- to seven-years-old and about 4.5 metres long. Amazingly, it included the animal’s stomach contents, revealing its last meal.
Gorgosaurus and the more famous Tyrannosaurus, which lived several million years later, are members of a meat-eating dinosaur group called tyrannosaurs. This fossil has provided insight into the ecology of this group, showing that the feeding strategy and diet of tyrannosaurs changed dramatically during their lifespan.
This is the first tyrannosaur skeleton with prey items preserved inside its stomach.
Based on tooth marks left on bones, adults are known to have hunted big plant-eating dinosaurs.
&uuid=(email))