Paleontologists say a mass grave in Utah shows the dinosaurs may not have always been solitary predators as previously thought.
Tyrannosaur dinosaurs may not have been solitary predators as long envisioned but more like social carnivores such as wolves, new research announced on Monday has found.
Paleontologists developed the theory while studying a mass tyrannosaur death site found seven years ago in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, one of two monuments that the Biden administration is considering restoring to their full size after former president Donald Trump shrank them.
Using geochemical analysis of the bones and rock, a team of researchers from the University of Arkansas determined that the dinosaurs died and were buried in the same place and were not the result of fossils washing in from multiple areas.
Kristi Curry Rogers, a biology professor at Macalester College, said this research is a “good start” but more evidence would be needed before determining that the tyrannosaurs were living in a social group.
“It is a little tougher to be so sure that these data mean that these tyrannosaurs lived together in the good times,” Rogers said. “It’s possible that these animals may have lived in the same vicinity as one another without travelling together in a social group, and just came together around dwindling resources as times got tougher.”
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.amp...d-in-packs-like-wolves-new-research-has-found
Tyrannosaur dinosaurs may not have been solitary predators as long envisioned but more like social carnivores such as wolves, new research announced on Monday has found.
Paleontologists developed the theory while studying a mass tyrannosaur death site found seven years ago in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, one of two monuments that the Biden administration is considering restoring to their full size after former president Donald Trump shrank them.
Using geochemical analysis of the bones and rock, a team of researchers from the University of Arkansas determined that the dinosaurs died and were buried in the same place and were not the result of fossils washing in from multiple areas.
Kristi Curry Rogers, a biology professor at Macalester College, said this research is a “good start” but more evidence would be needed before determining that the tyrannosaurs were living in a social group.
“It is a little tougher to be so sure that these data mean that these tyrannosaurs lived together in the good times,” Rogers said. “It’s possible that these animals may have lived in the same vicinity as one another without travelling together in a social group, and just came together around dwindling resources as times got tougher.”
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.amp...d-in-packs-like-wolves-new-research-has-found