The fossil of an extremely unlucky dugong has been uncovered. The old sea cow had a pretty bad day about 20 million years ago when it was eaten by both a crocodile and a shark.
This remarkable fossil was found in Venezuela, and belongs to the extinct genus Culebratherium, a relative of the modern dugong or sea cow. Part of a skull and some vertebrae were discovered, but that was enough to tell an incredible story of this creature’s unfortunate fate.
The poor dugong has three deep puncture marks on its snout, up to 8 mm (0.3 in) wide, which the team identified as crocodilian. These are neat puncture marks, straight in and out, meaning the croc clamped its jaws down and released, maybe a few times. Given the location on the body, the team says it might have been trying to suffocate its prey.
When that didn’t work, the crocodile changed tack. Another set of bite marks show similar round punctures that lead into large incisions in the bone, as well as other striations and slash marks. This indicates the croc did a 'death roll' on the dugong, something their modern counterparts are known to do to finish off their food.
A third set of tooth marks, found all over the skeleton, look completely different. These are long and narrow slits that leave V-shaped holes in the bone – the calling card of shark teeth. If there was any room for doubt, one of those teeth was found lodged in the dugong’s neck, allowing the team to identify the attacker as an extinct relative of the tiger shark. All up, it looks like the crocodile made the kill, and after it had eaten its fill the shark swooped in to scavenge the leftovers.
“Our findings constitute one of the few records documenting multiple predators over a single prey, and as such provide a glimpse of food chain networks in this region during the Miocene,” said Aldo Benites-Palomino, lead author of the study.
This rare find joins a club of fossils that tell clear, and often violent stories. Other members include the “Dueling Dinosaurs,” a mammal and a dinosaur locked in mortal combat, and marine reptiles having their heads bitten off.
The new study was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Source: Taylor and Francis Group via Scimex