"A 4-Winged, Fish-Eating Dinosaur" Topic

"Fossilized guts reveal that Microraptor — a four-winged, flying dinosaur — had an unusual taste for fish. Located near the fossil's ribs, a mass of fish bones bearing the mark of strong digestive acids suggests the crow-sized reptile's prey veered from the arboreal to the aquatic.

"There are only two other good examples of dinosaurs with a taste for sushi: the giant, crocodile-like spinosaurs and the tiny compsognathids," said Scott Persons, from the University of Alberta. "So, no. Fish are not usually considered as staples of a dino's diet."

Previous analyses of Microraptor specimens pointed toward prey retrieved from trees: small mammals and birds. But a new analysis, reported Apr. 19 by Persons and colleagues in the journal Evolution, suggests the dinosaur feasted on fish as well. The team based its conclusions on specimen QM V1002, retrieved from northeastern China in an area thought to have been a forested, freshwater lake environment 120 million years ago. Nearly complete, though with a badly crushed skull, the fossil bears traces of the long, dark feathers that have come to distinguish Microraptor. Among the preserved bones and feathers is a lump of bony fish bits that includes fin rays, ribs, vertebrae, and bits of acid-etched fish skull.

Yum…"
Full article here
link

Amcialement
Armand

Damn. Truth once again is stranger than fiction.

"A 4-Winged, Fish-Eating Dinosaur"
Best discovery since the "one-eyed, one-horned, flyin' purple people eater"

Well, I'm always a tad skeptical of general conclusions being drawn from gut content analysis, as it essentially only tells you the animal's last meal (and one specimen isn't exactly a respectable sample size, although that's obviously beyond the researcher's control in this instance).

Nonetheless, though, it is cool to know that they were at the very least capable of, and apparently did on occasion, go fishing. Gives a pretty vivid mental image of a microraptor diving from overhanging limbs into the lake, kind of like a modern-day kingfisher or something! Especially fitting as (to my knowledge…) microraptors are likely close relatives of the direct ancestors of birds.

Or…. it could have been a scavenger that ate a dead fish that washed up on shore. (aka a vulture)

Or… it could have been part of a larger creature's defecation that also included fish. (aka an alligator)

There are so many alternative possibilities that could have happened millions of years ago. To draw the conclusion that this thing actually went fishing and "feasted on fish", is poor logic at best.

I found a baseball in a pile of 1,000 year old garbage. There was a coyote skeleton and a bear skeleton also in the garbage pile. Therefore, evidence suggests that coyotes and bears played baseball. And the score was 6-5 in favor of the bears. No long black feathers were found. Therefore fish were not allowed to be spectators at the games.

Well of course definitive conclusions can't be drawn, no one was there to see what happened, but you can propose a most likely scenario based on a number of factors.

Or…. it could have been a scavenger that ate a dead fish that washed up on shore. (aka a vulture)

Scavenging is a distinct possibility, which the article brings up. Microraptor clearly lacked the legs of a wading bird, so it probably didn't pluck around through the water, and I don't think it had talons appropriate for snatching fish from the water, which would leave either diving or using its jaws to snap fish from near the surface, or scavenging.

Or… it could have been part of a larger creature's defecation that also included fish. (aka an alligator)

The microraptor and fish both comprising a larger animal's meal, though, seems highly improbable, based on the circimstances. The completeness and intact nature of the microraptor skeleton, in conjunction with the position of the fish skeletal remains in what would be the microraptor's gut, and clear signs of digestion on the fish skeleton, suggest that the fish was eaten (most likely by the microraptor), and that the microraptor was not.

..and here I thought it was the middle of a really good lawyer joke…