A passerby’s small find has now led to a massive discovery in the world of dinosaurs. A research team at the University of Alberta has found the first instance of raptors eating their distant cousin, the tyrannosaur. “It has three raking tooth marks…” Little tooth marks on the lower jaw of an Albertosaurus. That’s what technicians at the Royal Tyrrell Museum found when a member of the public turned in the curious-looking rock in 2022.

The fossil then made its way to a paleontology student at the U of A, who says he just wanted to know how dinosaurs interacted with each other. “It’s pretty exciting! I’ve always loved dinosaurs, I think a lot of people do as kids and it just never really went away for me,” said Joshua Doyon, the lead researcher and a master’s student. After four years of study, Doyon and his supervisors concluded that the bite marks were from a fellow carnivore – most likely, a raptor. “It’s not very often you find meat-eating dinosaur teeth on meat-eating dinosaurs,” said Philip Currie.

This means researchers are now closer to understanding the prehistoric beasts’ dietary behaviours. Since the discovery was made along the Drumheller badlands, professor Currie says this can bring more teams down to Alberta to learn more. “Scientists looking at it will ultimately, I think, produce more scientific papers […] whether the ideas are the same or whether the ideas are a little bit different than the conclusions we came to, who knows?” asked Currie.

Doyon says, “The big, meat-eating apex predators are always the most exciting dinosaurs I think. I’m pretty lucky that I got to spend quite a few years analyzing this specimen.” The Albertosaurus existed in what is now our province during the late cretaceous period, between 67 to 73 million years ago. The post University of Alberta researchers unearth new dinosaur diet discovery appeared first on CityNews Edmonton.