Diverse tooth marks on an adult sauropod bone from the Early Cretaceous, Korea: Implications in feeding behaviour of theropod dinosaurs

Abstract

Although carnivorous dinosaurs probably engaged in both predation and scavenging, it has been suggested that the tyrannosaurids were uniquely scavengers. The fossil record of bone damage resulting from predation by carnivorous theropod dinosaurs is sparse, and it is often difficult to determine whether tooth-marks were produced through predation or scavenging. In this study unusual tooth-marks on a caudal vertebra of an adult sauropod from the Lower Cretaceous Hasandong Formation, Korea, which are the deepest and longest scores ever documented, are described. In addition to these tooth-marks, small tooth-strike lesions, including shallow gouges and divots, are present on the same bone. These tooth-marks provide insight into the feeding behaviour of dinosaurs that scavenged the bodies of large, adult dinosaurs. The presence of both large and small tooth-marks on a single bone suggests that theropods of different sizes or kinds exploited the same adult sauropod carcass to deflesh it and/or to obtain bone nutrients, in a manner identical to that of modern carnivores.