Researchers at Montana State University’s Museum of the Rockies have documented an extraordinary fossil that provides detailed evidence of a Tyrannosaurus attack on another dinosaur. The specimen features a tyrannosaur tooth still lodged in the skull of an Edmontosaurus, a duck-billed herbivore that inhabited what is now Montana during the final stages of the Age of Dinosaurs.
The fossil was discovered in 2005 within the Hell Creek Formation of eastern Montana on federally managed land. The Edmontosaurus skull now resides in the Museum of the Rockies’ paleontology collection and is displayed in the Hall of Horns and Teeth. The embedded tooth represents an exceptionally rare find, as while bite marks on bones are relatively common in the fossil record, instances of teeth remaining trapped within bone are unusually scarce.
A collaborative study led by University of Alberta doctoral student Taia Wyenberg-Henzler and Museum of the Rockies Curator of Paleontology John Scannella examined the specimen using advanced imaging techniques. Researchers performed CT scans at a local hospital facility to analyze the tooth’s position and determine how it became embedded. By comparing the tooth against samples from all known carnivorous dinosaurs recovered from the Hell Creek Formation, scientists confirmed the predator was Tyrannosaurus.
The placement of the tooth in the Edmontosaurus’ face suggests a face-to-face encounter between predator and prey. The force required to break and embed the tooth indicates the predator employed considerable physical power during the attack. Notably, the skull shows no evidence of bone healing around the embedded tooth, suggesting the Edmontosaurus may have already been deceased at the time of the bite or died as a direct result of the attack.
The fossil provides paleontologists with direct behavioral evidence relevant to long-standing scientific debates about Tyrannosaurus feeding and hunting strategies. As one of the largest carnivorous land animals ever documented, the species remains central to paleontological investigation. The findings were published in the journal PeerJ.
Originally reported by ScienceDaily. Read the full story →