Museum of the Rockies paired up with a Canadian specialist in dinosaur teeth to understand how a T-rex tooth became embedded in the skull of edmontosaurus, a duck-billed dinosaur.
University of Alberta PHD candidate Taia Wyenberg-Henzler is the co-author of a research paper published February in the science journal PeerJ. She said fossil hunters uncovered the specimen roughly two decades ago.
"It’s exceptionally rare," Wyenberg-Henzler said.
It was found in what is now the Hell Creek Formation of eastern Montana.
Researchers CT-scanned the fossil at a local hospital to see the position of the tooth three-dimensionally. Wyenberg-Henzler said they can tell by its orientation in the skull that the T. rex confronted the Edmontosaurus head-on.
"When you look at modern animals, this sort of face to face type interaction typically occurs when one animal is hunting another animal," she said. "You can kind of akin it to a crocodile jumping out of the water and catching wildebeest on the nose by surprise
She said markings on the skull also indicate where the T. rex gnawed on its prey’s head after attacking. The fossil is on display at the Museum of the Rockies’ Hall of Horns and Teeth in Bozeman.
