SPIRITUAL AI

‘One-in-a-million’ fossil may show mammal about to chow down on a dinosaur The extraordinary 125-million-year-old scene was preserved in China’s “Dinosaur Pompeii” A 125-million-year-old fossil shows the entangled skeletons of a dinosaur (Psittacosaurus) and a mammal (Repenomamus).GANG HAN Some 125 million years ago in a verdant forest in what today is northern China, a furry, badger-size mammal and a scaly dinosaur three times its size were locked in mortal combat. The small yet savage mammal appears to have had the upper hand and may have been moments away from devouring its dino dinner when suddenly, an avalanchelike flow of volcanic debris swept over the combatants, instantly killing and entombing them both. Cemented in stone, their skeletons intertwined and the mammal’s teeth chomping down onto two of the dinosaur’s ribs, they lay together through the ages until a discovery in 2012 by a farmer. The researchers who have analyzed the fossil assert today in Scientific Rep