Fighting Dinosaurs: Fight for survival
In 1971 experts made one of the most exciting fossil discoveries: they found two dinosaurs, a protoceratops and a Velociraptor, entwined in a deadly embrace.
But what were the two dinosaurs doing when death caught them together?
Chronicle of a Murder
Gobi, Mongolia, 80 million years ago a Velociraptor (carnivorous) and a Protoceratops (herbivorous) struggle to survive.
While the Protoceratops bites the Velociraptor's right forepaw, the carnivore sticks the claw of its left hind paw under the collar of its prey.
The claw is huge
says Mark Norell, curator of the American Museum of Natural History
it is placed right at the base of the neck, where the arteries leading to the brain pass through
What stopped the two fighters forever? probably a huge dune of water-soaked sand collapsed on the animals fighting underneath it, however, there were also other hypotheses.
Hypotheses about the finding
The velociraptor died clinging with its front legs to the armored head of the protoceratops, while with its clawed hind legs it repeatedly struck its opponent. The velociraptor probably killed the protoceratops by lacerating its stomach, but the latter had nonetheless managed to break through the carnivore's thorax with its mighty armored head. Locked in a fatal grip, too injured to free themselves from each other, the two dinosaurs probably found death at the same time.
The two fighting dinosaurs died about 80 million years ago. The fossil skeletons were almost complete and the two dinosaurs remain in the same position as during the fight; they were found in Mongolia, in the Gobi Desert.
Experts were surprised at the violence showed by the peaceful protoceratops: some persons think it fought so hard to defend its nest, according to others the two would have been buried alive by a sudden and violent sandstorm during the fight.
