Pachycephalosaurus ate meat?

[suspsy]

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/10/news-vegetarian-dinosaur-ate-meat-pachycephalosaurus-paleontology/?user.testname=none

Interesting. Perhaps it was an omnivore, one that scavenged carcasses whenever the opportunity arose.

[Gwangi]

I feel pretty confident that there were quite a few omnivorous dinosaurs. People like to lump animals into carnivore or herbivore but there aren't many animals that are truly one or the other. An interesting find though.

[ITdactyl]

So essentially the pigs of the Mesozoic.  Nice.

[Vidusaurus]

I think it's incredibly plausible that many dinosaurs weren't as obligatorily carnivorous or herbivorous as we often assume. After all, many extant herbivores often scavenge or outright kill small rodents or birds for an extra boost in protein or vitamins. That being said, Pachycephalosaurs (and Marginocephalians in general) would be my best guess if someone were to ask me to pick a group that was far more omnivorous than first thought. After all, animals like Troodon were assumed to be Pachycephalosaurs when they were first discovered on the basis of tooth shape.

[Faelrin]

Well I guess there's finally some justification for those terrifying Pachycephalosaurus in the original Land Before Time film, if nothing else. What an interesting and exciting discovery and not one I would have seen coming. And now there's even more evidence that the Dracorex (and possibly Stygimoloch) fossils are just juvenile Pachycephalosaurus with this discovery. I wonder when those names will become nomen dubium though (I won't necessarily cry over their loss per se, but darn it I just love[d] those names). The discovery of sharper teeth just also happens to make it look a wee bit more like a dragon, as a juvenile, then it did before. So this dinosaur just got a whole lot cooler to me.

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

I thought this news had already come it? Unless it was just speculation before based o Heterodontosaurs or something?
Ever since I heard about Pachycephalosaur teeth being similar enough to Troodontid teeth to cause confusion, I suspected Pachycephalosaurs of being at least partially omnivorous.

[Flaffy]

The accompanying illustration is questionable. The nostrils, beak, dome and knobs look amateurish and crudely done compared to the intricate scale work of the head. Possible art theft? Or just an rushed artist who couldn't care less about providing something presentable.

[ITdactyl]

It's not art theft.  The drawing is attributed to Kari Scannella.  She also did the skull diagrams for the baby diplodocus paper (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-32620-x).  ReBecca HF @paleochick posted a photo of Kari (on Twitter) holding one of her art prints (a Gorgosaurus skull) from the recent SVP meeting (where the new information about the pachy was revealed and where this image was initially shared).  'Seems she produces good illustrations.

@Flaffy, I do get what you meant about the head ornaments not being consistent with the rest of the drawing.  Something tells me the artwork was originally a mature pachycephalosaurus, and then some edits were made - but that's just a big guess on my part.

[Halichoeres]

In line with what Vidusaurus said, deer eat squirrels from time to time. Not a lot of calcium in hazel leaves. More interesting is that I'm told this specimen is the first known predentary from a pachycephalosaurid, so now we have a better idea of how the mouth looked.

[CityRaptor]

Yes, it's not really a surprise. It has been suggested for Ceratopsians, too. And weren't there inverebrates in hadrosaur coprolithes? I also wouldn't be surprised if some of the big predatory Theropods occassionally ate fruit and other vegetation.

That being said, this scene gets another meaning:

They are not territorial, they want to eat her!

[Flaffy]

@ITdactyl
Seems like I've found the other life stages of Pachycephalosaurus depicted by the same artist. And they all share the same problem of extremely poorly done beak, horns and dome.