While other dinosaurs were crunching the bones of their prey in their powerful teeth, or slowly gnawing on leaves and twigs, Infernogallus jamesi may have been happily savouring nature’s sweet delights.
The newly described creature — whose name translates to “hell chicken” — had a toothless beak and jaw structure that strongly suggest it ate a primarily fruit-based diet, according to a study published in Nature Communications,
“This dinosaur was sort of a surprise to us because, for a long time, we didn’t think dinosaurs were eating fruits,” paleontologist Greg Funston, the study’s lead author, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
In fact, if the study’s authors are correct, that would make the hell chicken the first known frugivore dinosaur. Though some scientists caution that more evidence is needed to confirm the theory.
‘Probably quite vicious’
Infernogallus jamesi was the turkey-sized dinosaur that lived about 66 million years ago, roaming the planet alongside the Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops.
It was a member of the Caenagnathid family, a group of bird-like dinosaurs with long beaks and feathered bodies. Funston described it as a cross between an emu and a parrot, and said it was “probably quite vicious in personality.”
“Most people don’t want to be stuck in a cage with a turkey,” said Funston, an assistant professor at Stony Brook University in New York. “But it’s not named for its mood or its bad behaviour.”
Instead, the hell chicken gets its moniker from the Hell Creek Formation where its fossil was discovered in 2011. It’s now a rocky area that spans much of the western U.S. and some of Canada. But back in the Cretaceous period, it was a lush forest filled with prehistoric creatures.
The finding is exciting because complete Caenagnathid fossils are rare, says paleontologist and author Riley Black, who wasn’t involved in the study.
“I’ve been waiting for a fossil like Infernogallus for a long time,” Black said in an email.
“Infernogallus is our first look at what a caenagnathid skeleton really looked like in life, and, even better, it’s so strange that paleontologists might have to rethink how these dinosaurs were living.”
A toothless beak and a human-like jaw
What’s strange about the hell chicken’s skeleton, says Funston, is its jaw.
Most dinosaurs, he said, had jaws that “chewed pretty much straight up and down.” That gave herbivores the strength needed to consume prey, and allowed herbivores to chew through twigs, ferns, leaves and branches.
Not so for the hell chicken.
“Instead of pulling the jaws up and down, these muscles now would pull the jaws front to the back. This is a familiar motion for us. It’s something we do when we’re chewing,” he said.
“This animal was chewing something relatively soft, but that needed a lot of manipulation and processing before it could be swallowed. To us, there’s sort of only one thing that fits and that’s fruit.”
Scientists examined, scanned and reconstructed the skull of Infernogallus jamesi, a.k.a, the ‘hell chicken.’ (Submitted by Greg Funston)
If they’re right, that would solve a mystery that has long plagued palaeontologists, he says.
About 130 million years ago, flowering plants began to emerge on Earth, replacing the cone-bearing plants that preceded them, and providing an abundance of fruit for animals to feast upon.
Birds — which are, themselves, dinosaurs — were early fruit adopters. Studies show evidence they’ve been eating nature’s candy for at least 120 million years.
But until now, there’s been little evidence that non-bird dinosaurs ate fruit, at least not as a dietary staple.
“For a long time, we were sort of struggling to see how dinosaur evolution matched up with this big change,” Funston said.
Evidence ‘circumstantial,’ cautions scientist
But evidence the hell chicken was a fruit specialist remains, “for the moment, circumstantial,” says Black.
“When we’re looking at dinosaur skeletons, there’s always tension between what a dinosaur could have done and what it actually did,” she said.
“The beaky face of Infernogallus and the animal’s size leaves little doubt that the dinosaur was plucking small morsels and eating relatively soft foods. But what?”
To be certain, she says, scientists would need to find direct evidence of fruit inside the creature’s preserved guts — something easier said than done. A hell chicken would have to die shortly after eating, become fossilized, then be found relatively intact.
“Such finds are relatively rare, sometimes requiring exceptional circumstances and not a little bit of luck,” she said. “That we have any gut contents for any dinosaurs is very fortunate.”
Still, she says, the research is an exciting first step.
“The study will certainly feed further research and analysis on how plants and dinosaurs were interacting with each other,” she said.
“Few things in paleontology are ever the final word on how an animal that’s been dead for millions of years really lived. It’s the questions that keep us looking and debating, and that’s part of what’s so wonderful.”
