Paleontologists identified Infernogallus jamesi, a dinosaur about the size of a turkey whose skull suggests it could mash fruit, making it a candidate for the first known dinosaur adapted to a fruit-based diet.
The toothless, birdlike animal lived in North America near the end of the Cretaceous period, about 68 million to 66 million years ago, and was part of a group of feathered dinosaurs called caenagnathids. Its nearly complete skull was found in Montana’s Hell Creek Formation in 2011 and offers an unusually detailed look at a group whose remains are often incomplete. Researchers used CT scans to reconstruct the skull and jaw muscles, finding an arrangement unlike that of other known non-bird dinosaurs and similar to one found in fruit-eating parrots.
The skull structure suggests the lower jaw could slide back and forth. Ridges and grooves in the mouth may have helped the dinosaur mash soft food. The researchers propose that Infernogallus used this jaw movement to mash fleshy fruit and separate it from the seeds.
They also note that no stomach stones were found in the fossil. Its diet is inferred from its skull, not directly proven. The discovery raises the possibility that some dinosaurs processed fruit in ways that could have affected how seeds spread.