Pachycormus macropterus fish fossil with remains of the same species in its gut, circled Samuel L. A. Cooper (2023)
Juvenile fish sometimes cannibalised their younger fellows during the dinosaur era. They may have done so at times when other foods were scarce.
The behaviour was revealed by an exquisitely preserved set of fossils, which had been largely forgotten since the 1800s.
“This kind of stemmed from an accidental discovery,” says Samuel Cooper at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart in Germany.
Cooper…
