Dino-Eating Snake Makes Hiss-tory

Serpent preyed on titanosaur babies
By Jane Yager,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 3, 2010 5:06 AM CST
Updated Mar 3, 2010 6:00 AM CST
Dino-Eating Snake Makes Hiss-tory
A snake moves in for the kill against a titanosaur hatchling in this reconstruction.   (India Geological Society)

Hundred-ton dinosaurs may have been just as scared of snakes as humans are. The recent discovery of a fossilized snake wrapped around a baby titanosaur offers the first-ever direct evidence that prehistoric snakes fed on dinosaur hatchlings. Researchers believe the snake was attacking a baby dinosaur as it hatched; a natural disaster then overcame them, freezing the scene for perpetuity.

"It was such a thrill to discover such a portentous moment frozen in time," said the scientist who found the fossil in India. The snake and its prey were found among a fossilized dinosaur nest containing three other eggs. The dinosaur-eating snake would have been one of very few predators that preyed on giant dinosaurs like the plant-eating titanosaur.
(More dinosaurs stories.)

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