{"id":42055,"date":"2024-09-19T15:53:23","date_gmt":"2024-09-19T13:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/806a24e1-445b-4605-97b3-39c171ee67b3"},"modified":"2024-09-19T16:28:52","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T14:28:52","slug":"dinosaur-teeth-what-were-they-like-how-ferocious-were-they-and-what-do-they-tell-us-about-a-dinosaurs-diet","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/dinosaur-teeth-what-were-they-like-how-ferocious-were-they-and-what-do-they-tell-us-about-a-dinosaurs-diet\/","title":{"rendered":"Dinosaur teeth: what were they like, how ferocious were they – and what do they tell us about a dinosaur’s diet?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dinosaur teeth come in all sorts of sizes, shapes – and sharpness – and can tell us a lot about what they ate <\/p>

By <\/p>

Published: Thursday, 19 September 2024 at 13:53 PM<\/p>

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There are three main groups of dinosaurs. Very generally, ornithischians and sauropods were plant-eaters while theropods were meat-eaters (this is a legacy of evolutionary history, similar to how today\u2019s hoofed animals are herbivores and cats are carnivores). <\/strong><\/p>

How do we know what dinosaurs eat?<\/h2>

But there are many exceptions, so how do scientists know what a species ate? Although the contents of the gut or dung can provide clues to diet, the best evidence usually comes from studying teeth and jaws.<\/p>

Omnivorous dinosaurs had a combination of sharp and blunt tooth types: pointed for piercing and cutting; rounded for pounding and crushing. Just as mammals can have incisors, canines and molars, dinosaur teeth had a variety of forms, too \u2013 such as leaf, cone and peg-shaped. While early dinosaurs such as Plateosaurus<\/em> (\u2018broad lizard\u2019) were often generalists, later species became more specialist.<\/p>

Carnivorous dinosaurs such as Allosaurus<\/em> had a type of tooth that curved backwards with a serrated edge for tearing and carving flesh, called a ziphodont (\u2018sword-tooth\u2019). <\/p>

Some large theropods, notably tyrannosaurs, had chunkier teeth to better withstand bone-crunching stress \u2013 Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex)<\/em> had a predicted bite force <\/a>of 35,000-65,000 Newtons, around twice what\u2019s measured in saltwater crocodiles<\/a>. <\/p>

Other theropods were adapted to a more specialised diet: Spinosaurus<\/em> (\u2018spine lizard\u2019) had a crocodile-like snout and (possibly unserrated) teeth for catching fish, for example, whereas Therizinosaurus<\/em> (\u2018scythe lizard\u2019) had enormous claws but was actually a vegetarian. While the jaws of most carnivores opened and closed like scissors, those of herbivores typically had a wider range of motion \u2013 including side-to-side for chewing.<\/p>

Herbivorous dinosaurs had an array of tooth types. Sauropods like Diplodocus<\/em> (\u2018double beam\u2019) had pencil-shaped teeth that worked as a rake for stripping tree branches, and Brachiosaurus<\/em> (\u2018arm lizard\u2019) had spoon-shaped teeth for chopping plant matter. <\/p>