"Fossil find shows Velociraptor eating another dinosaur"

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8596000/8596568.stm

Palaeontologists have uncovered fossil fragments of Velociraptor  teeth 
alongside scarred bones of the large horned herbivore Protoceratops.

The teeth of the predator match marks on the herbivore's bones, suggesting 
Velociraptor scavenged its carcass.

The discovery is further evidence that predatory dinosaurs both hunted and 
scavenged their plant-eating relatives.
...
Dr David Hone of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing made the new 
discovery in Upper Cretaceous deposits at Bayan Mandahu, in Inner 
Mongolia, China.

Colleague Dr Jonah Choiniere originally found a mass of badly eroded 
Protoceratops bones. Among them lay two Velociraptor-like teeth.

Together with Dr Hone and colleagues Dr Corwin Sullivan and Dr Mike 
Pittman, Dr Choiniere analysed the fossils for bite marks.

The team found the Protoceratops bones were scarred in this way, and the 
bite marks matched the teeth found alongside.

The Velociraptor found at the site likely scavenged this particular 
Protoceratops, rather than hunted it.

"The marks were on and around bits of the jaw," Dr Hone told the BBC.

"Protoceratops probably weighed many times what a Velociraptor did, with 
lots of muscle to eat. Why scrape away at the jaws, where there's 
obviously not much muscle, so heavily that you scratch the bone and lose 
teeth unless there was not much else there.

"In short, this looks like scavenging as the animal would be feeding on 
the haunches and guts first, not the cheeks.
...