Infernogallus jaw points to a taste for soft fruit
A newly described dinosaur, Infernogallus jamesi, had a toothless jaw suited to processing soft food. Its unusually well-preserved skull supports an interpretation of fruit eating, while bone tissue indicates that the small animal was mature. The peer-reviewed fossil study connects feeding anatomy with flowering-plant evolution, without identifying a preserved meal or establishing how the dinosaur dispersed seeds.
Science··Morning
A small adult emerges from Hell Creek
The newly named Infernogallus jamesi belongs to a group of toothless dinosaurs called caenagnathid oviraptorosaurs. Its principal fossil includes a partial articulated skeleton and an almost complete skull. The peer-reviewed description places it in the Late Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation of North America, represented in what is now the United States.[1]
The femur measures 185 millimetres, and body mass was estimated at 12 ± 3 kilograms. Bone-tissue evidence indicates skeletal maturity. That distinguishes a genuinely small adult from a fossil whose small size simply reflects unfinished growth.[1]
The jaw could work soft food back and forth
Opposing ridges and grooves, muscle attachment areas and the jaw joint support a reconstruction in which the lower jaw moved forward and backward. That arrangement suited oral processing of soft foods. Comparisons with living fruit-eating parrots concern feeding function, without implying close evolutionary kinship between those birds and this dinosaur.[1]
Fruit eating remains an anatomical interpretation
Fleshy flowering-plant fruits are a proposed major food, but no preserved stomach contents identify a particular meal. The diversification of these dinosaurs was compared with the diversification of flowering-plant fruits. Their timing supports discussion of an ecological relationship; it does not establish causal coevolution or demonstrate the animal's role in seed dispersal.[1]
