FOSSIL OF A FRUIT-EATING DINOSAUR DISCOVERED

WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 1 /SRNA/ - Scientists in the United States have discovered fossils of a turkey-sized dinosaur that had no teeth and fed on fruit, marking the first known case of its kind among dinosaurs.

The species, named Infernogallus jamesi, lived around 66 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period, near the very end of the age of dinosaurs.

Its beak and jaws were adapted for crushing soft foods, such as fruit.

The dinosaur was identified from fossils found in Montana and North Dakota.

Scientists believe it fed on fruit and other soft plants in a subtropical coastal ecosystem that it shared with animals such as the predatory Tyrannosaurus and the three-horned herbivore Triceratops, Reuters reported.

Infernogallus was about 1.5 meters long and weighed approximately 11.3 kilograms.

Although the fossils, which include one nearly complete skeleton as well as individual jaw and palate bones, show no evidence of feathers, researchers believe that Infernogallus was covered in them.

It belonged to a group known as theropods, which includes T. rex and all carnivorous dinosaurs, as well as those that switched to a plant-based diet and the entire lineage that evolved into modern birds.

"This certainly expands the range of lifestyles we thought dinosaurs had and shows just how adaptable theropods were," said the study's lead author, paleontologist Greg Funston of Stony Brook University in New York.