Local paleontologist and professor Dr. Julia McHugh authors new study
PEERJ
Wednesday, July 14th Fruita, Colorado
Top predators dinosaurs like the Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus devouring dinosaur remains isn’t all that surprising, but the smaller creatures feasting on dinosaur remains may just give us a more complete picture of what life was like at Mygatt-Moore Quarry outside Fruita, Colorado 152 million years ago. A new study out in PeerJ on Wednesday, July 15th, 2020 authored by Museums of Western Colorado’s Paleontologist Dr. Julia McHugh, looks at the insect species who feasted on decaying dinosaurs back in the Jurassic period.
Researchers Dr. Julia McHugh (Museums of Western Colorado, Colorado Mesa University), Dr. Stephanie K. Drumheller (University of Tennessee), Anja Riedel (Colorado Mesa University), and Miriam Kane (Colorado Mesa University) examined more than 2,300 fossil bones over a two-year study and found over 400 traces left by insects and snails, a surprisingly high number. The marks researchers found on the fossils also came from at least six different invertebrates. These findings are a huge step to understanding the long-lost paleo diversity, and paleo climate of the Jurassic period.
It also gave researchers a better understanding of just how stinky the Jurassic period was too. The abundance of traces meant that the dinosaur carcasses must have been unburied for a long time – 5 months to 6 years or more according to this new study. “Large carcasses take a long time to decompose. The smell from a dead mouse in your basement is bad enough, but then imagine that mouse was a 65-foot long animal! The stench of rotting meat would have been a magnet for carrion insects and other scavengers,” Dr. McHugh explains.
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For more information visit: http://www.museumofwesternco.com/
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About: Museums of Western Colorado encompass the Dinosaur Journey Museum, Museum of the West, and Cross Orchards historic site. The Museums of Western Colorado inspires and connects our community by championing the scientific and cultural heritage of the Colorado Plateau.
Artwork: Illustration by Brian Engh, dontmesswithdinosaurs.com
Full paper link: https://peerj.com/articles/9510/
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“Top predators dinosaurs like the Allosaurus and Ceratosaurus devouring dinosaur remains isn’t all that surprising, but the smaller creatures feasting on dinosaur remains may just give us a more complete picture of what life was like at Mygatt-Moore Quarry outside Fruita, Colorado 152 million years ago.”
Strangely I had assumed that was the norm. That once a creature died it became a food source.
Or, the reason a creature died was because it couldn’t prevent from becoming a food source.
“May just give us a more complete picture of what life was like …152 million yeas ago” Yeah, sure – archaeology isn’t an exact science, is it?
The age can be reasonably exact, it depends on the microfossil remains in the enclosing sediments. There may even be a lava flow in the host sedimentary sequence that can be radiometrically dated.
Volcanic ash (tuff) beds are also suitable for radiometric dating.
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/side_0_0/radiodating_01#:~:text=Geologists%20use%20radiometric%20dating%20to,fossils%20contained%20within%20those%20rocks.&text=Sedimentary%20rocks%20can%20be%20dated,than%20about%2050%20thousand%20years.
Paleontology ≠ Archaeology
One word: Ants.
The soft tissues get devoured pretty quick by ants and maggots.
To me I wonder where the ants were in that picture. In today’s world, they don’t last that long because of ants in every biome I can imagine.
https://youtu.be/R3Mt2E1M6dU
And another,
https://youtu.be/_62o686eRTs
But… if the ants are kept away, the fly larvae have a feast.
Time lapse deer carcass taken apart by maggots.
https://youtu.be/9twFI210maw
So they are studying the large bones of the skeleton left behind for years.
Joel,
“One word: Ants.”
One word: No.
Ants first appear in the fossil record in the Early Cretaceous associated with the rise of the flowering plants, these are Jurassic dinosaurs.
Ruining picnics for 100 My.
When did flies arise, along with their hungry larva???
Triassic
thank you.
JVC
Misleading Phillip.
Ants did not spontaneously appear 99 million years ago. Their evolutionary tree relatives were well in evidence, at least since the Jurassic.
Hymenoptera, one word, yes.
Joel’s summation is correct.
The researchers in the article above are urbanites speculating upon large bones and basing their suppositions on a squeaky clean modern lab.
e.g.:
Battle of the Wilderness, one year following the Chancellorsville Battle;
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.MePaMgG1SqkSOPszz-s-0QHaFk%26pid%3DApi&f=1
e.g. 2:
Cleaning up after the Battle of Cold Harbor;
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.MePaMgG1SqkSOPszz-s-0QHaFk%26pid%3DApi&f=1
Molecular clocks yield a Jurassic origin, earlier than rocks and amber. Ants might have evolved from wasps as long ago as 168 Ma.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/312/5770/101
But they diversified in the Cretaceous, thanks to the spread of angiosperms. Some ants in amber from that period still retain waspish traits lost in their Cenozoic kin.
Thanks John.
Information noted.
De nada!
I guess it depends on location. In the East SF Bay hills, it’s ravens first then the vultures that mop up the dead deer road kill. Slim pickings for the insects after that. Dead deer – always a good photography opportunity.
https://postimg.cc/ZC9tgf2b
In northern Ontario, bald eagles are well into replacing ravens as the first responders to road kill. This has just started happening in the last few years as the eagle population has exploded. Why bother hunting when you can just sit on top of a tree beside the highway and wait for the traffic to do the killing for you?
If it’s a big carcass, there will be coyotes and/or wolves along for a meal after dark.
What makes you think the insects weren’t already on it when the ravens got there?
Interesting report on the environment of Late Jurassic dinosaurs. I have walked through the preserved environmental record of the Jurassic through Cretaceous, in the Neuquen Basin of Argentina (OK, looking for copper and uranium in sandstones, there was a lot!), and the biodiversity of both flora and fauna was amazing. The environment was, especially in Cretaceous, arid countryside but with rivers and localized trees and grass along their course. Fossilized dinosaur bones, both herbivores and carnosaurs, were abundant where there were also fossilized trees and bushes, and the most fossil-rich environment was a flood overbank facies. I saw a preserved circular, one meter across, collection of rib fragments, with rounded teeth marks at the ends, looked like the remains of a barbecued rib feast with bad eating manners. Stay sane and safe.
As I recall from my old paleontology courses, true grasses didn’t appear until the Miocene.
Now known to have been around since the Cretaceous. Previously thought the Paleocene or Eocene, but phytoliths have been found in nonavian dino coprolites.
“The stench of rotting meat …”
That stench to most is the sweet aroma of food for others who feast on carrion. It is all a matter of what one is used to.
Interesting, i had a doctors app’t in fruits yesterday and hiked Dinosaur Hill as I got there too early for my app’t. Looks like great fossil country. Mostly I’ve been rock hounding in the 10k foot range in west central Colorado. Lots of seabed remains, bones and shells.
Or, the reason a creature died was because it couldn’t prevent from becoming a food source.
Same old story for millions of years- the one at the back of the herd or the one separated from the herd becomes the dinner of a bigger, badder meat eating dinosaur.
The exact same scenario still applies to day in any predatory situation.
I have a fond memory of working as a volunteer assistant for a USGS geologist around the Ruby Mtns. of eastern Nevada. A geology major with extensive experience camping and backpacking, I couldn’t be a paid assistant because my uncle was a USGS geologist as well. We had access to a ranch west of the range and proceeded through several gates to an area my boss wanted to study. Walking about we came across a large charcoal grey boulder sitting alone with a beautiful cross-section of an ammonite or nautiloid type shell exposed on the top in white calcite crystals (slightly metamorphosed.) I wanted so badly to put that rock in my pack and take it home with me; it probably didn’t weigh much more than 3,000 or 4,000 pounds!
The veins of exposed garnets we saw up in the Rubys were pretty amazing, too! Geology is cool, and paleontology ain’t bad either!
Ever smelt a decomposing whale? Downwind you will know of its presence literally miles away.
Oregon beach, exploding whale:
Thanks Jeff,
That put a smile on my face 🙂
Peopled dealing with a bad smell, using half a ton of dynamite was only ever going to end up with them covered in sh.** .
You’re welcome, I think.
The people of the area recently voted to name a local park or beach after the incident.
“The abundance of traces meant”?
How does that work scientifically? Abundance? Means?
“Large carcasses take a long time to decompose”?
• A) No chit Sherlock.
• B) How many large carcasses did you actually watch and time?
Large carcasses where hungry scavengers are abundant disappear surprisingly quick. Unlike relatively sterile environments, e.g. Polar areas, suburbs and cities.
“It also gave researchers a better understanding of just how stinky the Jurassic period was too.”?
And that metric is determined, how?
Did the apparently civilized researchers journey to other countries and standards of living? Not likely, they decided all of this from their sterile environments.
I don’t have to imagine the stench.
I used to ride along a 10km portion of the Golden Highway near Singleton NSW on a motorbike.
Summertime was challenging with the combination of a dead kangaroo (hit by cars) every 50m or so and 35 degree temps.
Its surprising how long you can hold your breath.