Palaeontologists have described Infernogallus jamesi, a name meaning “hell chicken”, and say it is the first dinosaur with clear evidence of a diet centred on fruit, Reuters reports.
The toothless, parrot-headed theropod was about the size of a turkey, roughly 1.5 metres long and 11 kilograms, and lived around 66 million years ago. Its remains, including a nearly complete skeleton, come from the Hell Creek Formation in Montana and North Dakota.
Three features gave its diet away: jaw muscles that worked back and forth, a jaw joint that slid forwards, and ridges along the beak for crushing soft food. No animal alive today has all three together. The study, led by Greg Funston of Stony Brook University with Thomas Dudgeon of the Royal Ontario Museum, appears in Nature Communications.
The find widens the picture of what dinosaurs ate, and hints that some may have helped spread the seeds of early flowering plants. The picture above shows Anzu, a close relative from the same rocks.
Source: Reuters via CTV News