Sinornithosaurus - Venomous Flying Dinosaur?
While we still don’t know everything about dinosaurs, and new discoveries are constantly being made, we didn’t know whether or not dinosaurs could have used venom for a long time.
In 2009, a team led by Empu Gong studied a very well-preserved Sinornithosaurus skull, and discovered several features suggesting it may have been the first dinosaur to be identified as venomous. Sinornithosaurus (name meaning “Chinese bird-lizard”) was a small feathered dromaeosaurid (raptor) and a very early distant cousin of the modern birds. Gong says that its teeth are unusually large and “so long and fang-like that the animal appears to be saber-toothed”, similar to back-fanged snakes like boomslangs and vine snakes.
(Findings in the skull structure)
The best sign that a dinosaur was venomous would be the presence of grooved or hollow teeth. With some notable exceptions, most animals with poison bites use grooves like these to channel their toxins from glands in their mouth to whatever they bite. And grooves are exactly what Gong and his colleagues found in Sinornithosaurus‘s well-preserved skull. Bryan Fry, who discovered venom glands in Komodo dragons earlier this year, says, “It is an absolutely fantastic piece of work. I actually got goose-bumps reading it! Other studies have suggested dinosaurs may be venomous but this is the most solid piece of evidence.”
Gong says that other aspects of the skull in support of his venom hypothesis. His team noticed that Sinornithosaurus has a small hollow on the side of its jawbone that could have housed a venom gland. They also found a thin groove running along the animal’s jaw, with small pits at the top of each tooth. They interpret this canal as a “collecting duct” that channelled venom from the gland to the teeth, and each pit could have acted as small, local venom reservoirs. David Burnham, a co-author on the paper, says, “Other fossil animals (dinosaurs, lizards, mammals) have been suggested to be venomous simply on the presence grooved teeth but out work found multiple lines of evidence.”
(Model)
(Sinornithosaurus fossil)
There are other claims, however, arguing against this hypothesis. Here's an article: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/sinornithosaurus-probably-wasnt-venomous-after-all-75529149/
As always,
-Telekrex (DAILY dragon/dinosaur-related content!)
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