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China’s Feathered Dinosaurs
Remains of a mammal—two jawbones
—eaten by Sinosauropteryx
CLOSE WINDOW
they share in common with living crocodilians. Sinosauropteryx was no exception: the large,
sharply pointed, prehensile teeth that lined its jaws had serrated edges well suited to rending prey
too large to be swallowed whole. By that standard modern-day birds have unusual diets of insects,
fruits and seeds. But that variety seems less unusual when birds, some species of which weigh
less than a penny, are considered as part of a huge array of dinosaurs that have adapted to fill
many ecological niches.
The last common ancestor shared by crocodilians and birds was a macrocarnivore, that is, it regularly
fed on large prey. Plant eating evolved later in such important dinosaur lineages as ornithischians
(e.g., Stegosaurus, Triceratops) and sauropods (e.g., Apatosaurus, Camarasaurus).