Rare evidence found that dinosaurs ate mammals

The remains of a dinosaur have been found that, during the Cretaceous period, 120 million years ago, swallowed its last meal – a small mammal the size of a mouse.

The researcher’s keen eye spotted a mammalian leg preserved inside the intestines of a fossilized microraptor zhaoianus, a feathered theropod less than a meter long.

“At first I couldn’t believe it. Inside the microraptor skeleton was a tiny mammalian foot about a centimeter long, which is perfectly preserved,” said Hans Larsson, professor of biology at the Redpath Museum at McGill University in Montreal. Larsson came across the fossil while visiting museum collections in China.

“This find is the only solid evidence we have of mammalian dinosaur food intake,” Larsson said in a press release.