As if velociraptors weren’t scary enough. A new analysis of dinosaur-era skulls suggests that at least one of these birdlike predators, along with many of its ancient brethren, hunted by night.
Not all extinct archosaurs — dinosaurs and their close relatives — loved to bask in the sun. Like other animal groups, these ancient creatures were up at all hours, researchers from the University of California, Davis report online April 14 in Science. And just like modern mammals, predatory dinos seem to have preferred prowling the night, while herbivores grazed during the day and into the evening.
“We shouldn’t be surprised that there were predatory dinosaurs skulking around the shadows,” says Lawrence Witmer, a paleobiologist with Ohio University in Athens. “The surprising thing about this study is we could tell.”