According to CNN's report, a fossil was found showing a cat-sized mammal, known as Repenomamus Robustus, which is believed to have lived during the Cretaceous period, attacking a plant-eating dinosaur species called Psittacosaurus, which was three times its size. Both creatures died during the encounter, and their remains have been preserved in the fossil without significant disturbance until today.
The fossil reveals that Psittacosaurus had its left front paw around R. Robustus's lower jaw, while its left hind paw held the dinosaur's rear leg. Meanwhile, the mammal's teeth were embedded in the dinosaur's ribs.
Jordan Mallon, a paleobiologist from the Canadian Museum of Nature and one of the researchers involved in the study, mentioned that this discovery could challenge the notion that mammals could not attack dinosaurs.
Fossils that provide evidence of interactions between different species and shed light on the predatory behavior of extinct creatures are quite rare.
Mallon further explained that the mammal in the fossil was one of the largest mammals of its time and about the size of a cat.
The previous belief was that larger dinosaurs preyed on smaller mammals, but this discovery suggests that these mammals could defeat a larger dinosaur when they were hungry or in desperate situations.
Psittacosaurus was a small, beaked dinosaur that was common in the region at that time, Mallon stated. He also suggested that both creatures might have died during a volcanic eruption and then rapidly buried by a mudflow.
