Dec
25
Venomous bite: New fossil bares dinos’ fangs
December 25, 2009 |
Palaeontologists claim to have found evidence that dinosaurs, from a species related to the Velociraptor, had venomous bite - like many
poisonous snakes.
The findings by an international team is based on the discovery of a fossil of a feathered “raptor” with grooved fangs which it says certainly delivered venom to killed their prey, the Daily Telegraph reported. A well-preserved skull and partial skeleton of the dinosaur, discovered in China, also found depressions in the jaw bone on each side of the face that may have housed poison glands.
According to experts, even other members of the dromaeosaur family including Sinornithosaurus, which was a close relative of Velociraptor, may have killed or immobilised their prey with poison. David Burnham of Kansas University, who led the team, said: “You wouldn’t have seen it coming. It would have swooped down behind you from a low-hanging tree branch and attacked from the back.
“The prey would go into shock, but it would still be living, and it might have seen itself being slowly devoured by this raptor,” said Burnham.
