A recent find in Utah reveals a large prehistoric lake around 200 million years with an amazing fossil cache including an enormous, carnivorous dinosaur and several species of sharks. Anatomical features of the dinosaur suggest it specialized in eating fish, including sharks and huge bony fish, meals which palaeontologist James Kirkland describes as “like biting through chain mail [since] fish in the past were more armored than they are today."The dinosaur, a relative of the crested dino Dilophosaurus, was about 20 feet long and so would have been a formidable adversary for its ferocious prey. The dinosaur’s slender, serrated teeth are quite unusual and only found in dinosaurs like Spinosaurus and Suchimimus.
Dilophosaurus was well adapted to being a fisherman. Its nasal openings retracted back from the end of its snout so that it could, like today's crocodiles and alligators, still breath when its mouth was underwater.
There are clear tracks and claw scrapes showing the dinosaur wading into the lake to catch its prey. "We have counted over 3,000 individual claw marks and toe scrapes that show incredibly detailed preservation," reveals palaeontologist Andrew Milner. "We can see details of cuticle on the tips of claws, skin impressions, scale scratch lines and where claw cuticle was overlapped by the fleshy toe pads at the end of the toes."
