— Related video
— Earthquakes: Water as a lubricant — Geophysicists from Potsdam have established a mode of action that can explain the irregular distribution of strong earthquakes at the San Andreas Fault in California. As the science…
— Ancient environment found to drive marine biodiversity — Much of our knowledge about past life has come from the fossil record - but how accurately does that reflect the true history and drivers of biodiversity on Earth?…
— Earth's core deprived of oxygen — The composition of the Earth's core remains a mystery. Scientists know that the liquid outer core consists mainly of iron, but it is believed that small amounts of some other elements…
— Human, artificial intelligence join forces to pinpoint fossil locations — In 1991, a team led by Washington University in St. Louis palaeoanthropologist Glenn Conroy, PhD, discovered the fossils of the first - and still the only - known pre-human ape ever…
— Palaeontologist describes large nest of juvenile dinosaurs, first of their genus ever found — A nest containing the fossilised remains of 15 juvenile Protoceratops andrewsi dinosaurs from Mongolia has been described by a University of Rhode Island palaeontologist, revealing…
— Researchers pinpoint date and rate of Earth's most extreme extinction — It's well known that Earth's most severe mass extinction occurred about 250 million years ago. What's not well known is the specific time when the extinctions occurred. A team of researchers…
— Archeologists investigate Ice Age hominins' adaptability to climate change — Computational modelling that examines evidence of how hominin groups evolved culturally and biologically in response to climate change during the last Ice Age also bears new insights…
— Research suggests strong Indian crust thrust beneath the Tibetan Plateau — For many years, most scientists studying Tibet have thought that a very hot and very weak lower and middle crust underlies its plateau, flowing like a fluid. Now, a team of researchers…
— Did dinosaurs have lice? Researchers say it's possible — A new study louses up a popular theory of animal evolution and opens up the possibility that dinosaurs were early - perhaps even the first - animal hosts of lice…
Gobi Desert yield new species of nut-cracking dinosaur
Plants or meat: That's about all that fossils ever tell palaeontologists about a dinosaur's diet. But the skull characteristics of a new species of parrot-beaked dinosaur and its associated gizzard stones indicate that the animal fed on nuts and/or seeds. These characteristics present the first solid evidence of nut-eating in any dinosaur.
'The parallels in the skull to that in parrots, the descendants of dinosaurs most famous for their nut-cracking habits, is remarkable,' said Paul Sereno, a palaeontologist at the University of Chicago and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence. Sereno and two colleagues from the People's Republic of China announce their discovery 17 June in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The palaeontologists discovered the new dinosaur, which they've named Psittacosaurus gobiensis, in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia in 2001, and spent years preparing and studying the specimen. The dinosaur is approximately 110 million years old, dating to the mid-Cretaceous Period.
The quantity and size of gizzard stones in birds correlates with dietary preference. Larger, more numerous gizzard stones point to a diet of harder food, such as nuts and seeds. 'The psittacosaur at hand has a huge pile of stomach stones, more than 50, to grind away at whatever it eats, and this is totally out of proportion to its three-foot body length,' Sereno explained.
Technically speaking, the dinosaur is also important because it displays a whole new way of chewing, which Sereno and co-authors have dubbed 'inclined-angle' chewing. 'The jaws are drawn backward and upward instead of just closing or moving fore and aft,' Sereno said. 'It remains to be seen whether some other plant-eating dinosaurs or other reptiles had the same mechanism.'
The unusual chewing style has solved a major mystery regarding the wear patterns on psittacosaur teeth. Psittacosaurs sported rigid skulls, but their teeth show the same sliding wear patterns as plant-eating dinosaurs with flexible skulls.
Citation: 'A new psittacosaur from Inner Mongolia and the parrot-like structure and function of the psittacosaur skull,' Paul C. Sereno, University of Chicago; Zhao Xijin, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Tan Lin, Bureau of Land Resources, Hohot, People's Republic of China, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 17 June 2009.
Or subscribe for our Newsletter, a free e-mail publication. It is published practically every day.
Outliving the Ice Age: Tale of a rhinoceros
Cleveland Museum of Natural History scientist announces new horned dinosaur
First horned dinosaur from Mexico
New pterodactyl discovered in Sahara