Overview
- A Nature Communications paper published this week formally names Infernogallus jamesi based on five Hell Creek specimens and places a nearly complete skull and partial skeleton on display at the Royal Ontario Museum.
- High-resolution CT scans and 3D reconstructions show jaw muscles oriented front-to-back and a textured palatal surface, an arrangement that would let the beak move forward and backward to shear and mash soft foods.
- The animal was turkey-sized, about 12 kg, and lived in the same late Cretaceous landscapes as Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops in the Hell Creek Formation.
- Authors propose that the timing of these jaw changes parallels the rise of fleshy angiosperm fruits and raise the idea that caenagnathids like Infernogallus could have acted as seed dispersers, but they present this as a testable hypothesis rather than a confirmed fact.
- Key limits remain: the frugivory claim rests on anatomical and biomechanical proxies rather than gut contents, the sample is small, and researchers say future tests such as dental microwear, isotopes, more specimens, and plant–fossil context are needed to confirm diet and ecological roles.