Friday, January 15, 2010

Were There Venomous Dinosaurs?

This is a terrific article that looks into recent claims that there is fossil evidence that some dinosaurs were armed to the teeth.

Groovy teeth, but was Sinornithosaurus a venomous dinosaur? : Not Exactly Rocket Science
It's a dinosaur tooth, and clearly one that belonged to a predator - sharp and backwards-pointing. But this particularly tooth, belonging to a small raptor called Sinornithosaurus, has a special feature that's courting a lot controversy. It has a thin groove running down its length, from the root to the very tip. According to a new paper from Enpu Gong of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, it was a channel for venom.