About 120
million years ago, a small dinosaur gulped down a lizard, swallowing the
reptile whole. The wee lizard's story might have ended there, but the dinosaur
died soon after and was preserved as a fossil. Millions of years later,
paleontologists discovered the scaly meal in the dinosaur's belly.
Scientists
found the lizard when they examined the fossil of a feathered dinosaur
named Microraptor zhaoianus, a small carnivore from the early
Cretaceous period (145.5
million to 65.5 million years ago) in what is now northeastern China.
In Microraptor's abdomen was a near-complete skeleton that the researchers
identified as a previously unknown lizard species.
This
"exceptional specimen" paints a clearer picture of the animal
diversity in this region during the Cretaceous, and it hints at what was on the
menu for dinosaur predators like Microraptor, the scientists reported in a
new study.
Microraptor belongs
to the theropod (meat-eating) dinosaur group known as the dromaeosaurids —
small to medium-sized bird-like dinosaurs — which also includes Velociraptor and Deinonychus.
It had flight feathers on its front and back limbs, and it could likely glide
or even fly, according to the study.
The
fossilized lizard's skeleton was still whole and nearly complete, and it
appeared to belong to a juvenile. Its position inside the dinosaur's gut showed
that it was gulped down headfirst, "consistent with feeding behavior in
extant carnivorous lizards and birds," the study authors wrote.
They
dubbed the ingested lizard Indrasaurus wangi: The species name
honors paleontologist Yuan Wang, director of the Paleozoological Museum of
China, and Indrasaurus refers to a legend from ancient Indian
texts about the deity Indra, who was swallowed whole by a dragon.
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