Just as there are carnivorous animals in nature today, carnivorous dinosaurs also existed. That is, they were dinosaurs that ate other dinosaurs to live, generally herbivores.
They also included those that were capable of eating remains of dead animals, so some included scavenging behavior. And they were characterized by having sharp, sharp teeth, along with sharp claws, essential for tearing meat.
Furthermore, because they needed a lot of meat to survive, they had a predatory instinct that put them in pursuit of their possible prey. An example of this is dinosaur fossils that were unearthed together, somehow locked in a fight.
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What dinosaurs were carnivores?
It can be said that carnivorous dinosaurs were among those known as theropods. This was because they moved on their hind limbs. Therefore, most of these, especially the largest ones, ate meat.
Many of the smaller theropods evolved omnivory and in some cases herbivory. They are the ones that progressed to become modern birds. The rest had the characteristics of theropods, mostly carnivorous.
The name Theropod comes from the Greek Theropoda What does it mean beast feet. This is related to their form of locomotion. They first appeared in the Carnian age of the Late Triassic period, about 230 million years ago and included the large terrestrial carnivores.
What were carnivorous dinosaurs like?
Each species is different, but dinosaurs that are understood as carnivores have clear traits in common. The most notable are their teeth that have similar characteristics.
In general they appear as curved, curved backwards, which is important for gripping and grinding the meat. In fact, some dinosaurs have serrated teeth to facilitate cutting and crushing the bones of their prey.
There are also its eyes, placed on a bone structure in the same way that they can be seen in reptiles and birds. The frontal position makes it possible for them to use almost global peripheral vision.
However, these animals tended to keep their eyes forward to better appreciate the distance. Even if we visualize it as a bird, this also depended on its sense of smell. Carnivorous dinosaurs had olfactory sensors that indicated the presence of important odors for miles around.
Many wonder if they had feathers or scales. And the answer could be both. Some had one or the other. The feathers were not like those of today’s birds. They were actually proto-thin feathers like those of newborn chicks.
They were not useful for flying, but they served for metabolism and regulation of body temperature. Carnivorous dinosaurs had a large skull, suggesting that they had a large central nervous system.
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The diet of carnivorous dinosaurs
A scavenger dinosaur is one that eats remains of animals that it has not necessarily hunted. They may be remnants of prey from other dinosaurs, or they may be some that died from natural causes.
This was included in carnivory and was also a behavior exercised by large active hunters such as Tyrannosaurus.
Usually a carnivorous dinosaur was a great hunter, although it rarely went out hunting alone. Most of the time he did it in a herd, especially when they were smaller in size like the Deinychus or in pairs like Allosaurus.
This allowed them to pounce on large prey in order to obtain enough food for everyone. Some carnivorous dinosaurs were small, but this did not prevent them from hunting other prey.
The important thing was to be fast, intelligent and agile. Some even had enough agility to use the claws on their paws.
Carnivorous dinosaurs also went into the water to hunt. They are the ones that consumed fish, so their diet was piscivorous. This was the case of the family Spinosauridae, which included Spinosaurus, Baryonix and Suchomimus.
They stood out for their slightly flattened skull, curved teeth and a large, more developed claw for fishing. Some even had a dorsal fin that allowed them to move forward in an aquatic environment.
Carnivorous dinosaurs often evolved an omnivorous diet. That is to say, they completed their diet with the intake of vegetables and seeds. They had more developed teeth, with which they ingested both animals and plants.
Added to this are the insectivorous dinosaurs that were smaller, which accounts for their diet. This is the case of Compsognathus.
Cannibalism among carnivorous dinosaurs
There were cases in which carnivorous dinosaurs ended up devouring others of the same species. This generally occurred accidentally, as a result of a fight resulting from reproductive competition or dominance of the herd.
She could even eat eggs fertilized by other males to preserve her offspring. The specimens that best represented this behavior were those of the Tyranosauridea family.
This occurred as a result of detecting teeth bites from the same species in fossil remains, which suggested that it could be a fight over mating.
The evolution of carnivorous dinosaurs
When you think of dinosaurs, you generally think of giants like the Tyrannosaurus, Torvosaurus either Gigantosaurus. However, these took a while to appear in the evolutionary history of dinosaurs.
For tens of millions of years, while other dinosaurs developed enormous sizes, carnivorous dinosaurs larger than 12 meters did not even exist.
It is known that dinosaurs appeared 235 million years ago in the Middle Triassic, but then they did not have the shape of those that are so popular today. They were no bigger than a German Shepherd. It is possible that they were initially omnivores.
Variation and evolution led to the emergence of theropods and the ancestors of sauropods. With the mass extinction at the end of the Triassic 201 million years ago, carnivorous dinosaurs began to grow and predominate depending on their dominance.
But this conception is beginning to change. The studies of Herrerasaurus indicate that it was already roaming 230 million years ago in the Triassic in what is now Argentina. It measured just over 4 meters, which made it larger than a polar bear. And although some dispute that it was a theropod, there is no doubt that it was a great carnivore.
This suggests that the known large theropods could be immature animals that were still developing. To date, only six partial skeletons are known among large theropods. Therefore, these conceptions change frequently to generate new theories.
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Evolution based on speed
A study has been revealing about the evolution of carnivorous dinosaurs. Research published by the University of Alberta concluded that they had developed to become faster over time. The proof of this is in the length of the legs.
Author Scott Persons measured the limbs of 53 species of carnivorous bipedal dinosaurs. Some of the most important included the Velociraptor, Allosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex.
The length of the dinosaurs’ legs below the knee was studied. As a general rule, the longer the lower leg is compared to the upper leg, the faster the animal is.
By looking at the limb ratio score of each fossil carnivore, they found a measure of how well it evolved for high speed. This led to the conclusion that they evolved to be faster over time.
However, that burst of speed comes at a cost, as longer legs are less suitable for carrying large body volumes. Speed and the need for better weight support are always in conflict.