Overview
- The study, published in the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin, reconstructs a Late Jurassic food web from the Morrison Formation about 150 million years ago.
- Researchers combined body-size estimates, patterns of tooth wear, occasional fossilized gut contents, and evidence of healed injuries to infer predator–prey relationships.
- Extreme size disparities—adults exceeding roughly 30,000 kilograms versus hatchlings under about 100 kilograms—and the impracticality of nest guarding left young sauropods highly vulnerable.
- Allosaurus is characterized as a hypercarnivore focusing on juvenile dinosaurs, while Torvosaurus occupied a broader niche that likely included fish, turtles, and crocodiles, reducing direct competition.
- Co-author William Hart suggests plentiful young sauropods could have sustained injured Allosaurus individuals, a dynamic the authors say helped stabilize this ecosystem compared with later periods.