London, November 22 (ANI): Recent evidence has confirmed what palaeontologists long suspected - dinosaurs preyed on their feathered relatives.
Jingmai O'Connor and colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing found an almost-whole skeleton of a bird in the stomach area of a fossilised dinosaur.
The bird, part of an extinct group called Enantiornithes, was found inside an early Cretaceous winged theropod called Microraptor gui.
They were part of the prehistoric ecosystem known as the Jehol biota, existing in present-day China.
As the skeleton was almost intact, scientists believe the bird may have been swallowed alive as a whole.
O'Connor's team also makes a number of speculations based on their new findings.
For eg the fossil bird's feet - adapted for perching - show that it lived on trees. On its part the Microraptor had four wings, so it may have glided through trees to hunt there where it may have made a meal out of this bird.
However, other scientists have cautioned against reaching such conclusions yet.
"The fact that Enantiornithes are largely viewed as arboreal animals doesn't mean that they didn't frequent the ground - like most living arboreal birds, from parrots to woodpeckers," the New Scientist quoted Luis Chiappe at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County as saying. (ANI)
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