01/22/2025
A cast of the Fighting Dinosaurs fossil and how the scene may have appeared before the two dinosaurs were killed.
About 75 million years ago, in what is now the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, two dinosaurs, a Protoceratops (left) and a Velociraptor, fought it out with each other in a battle to the death. But neither really won, as both became fossilized together. The fossil was found in 1971 by a team of palaeontologists.
An extract from Dr Dean Lomax's book, Locked in Time: Animal Behavior Unearthed in 50 Extraordinary Fossils, which was illustrated by Bob Nicholls:
"Considering how unlikely it is for any animal to become a fossil, finding two largely complete dinosaurs literally fighting to their deaths is one of the most exquisite and improbable finds in paleontology history. It is also perhaps the most famous fossil that captures behavior in action. One part of this deadly pair is Protoceratops andrewsi, a boar-sized herbivorous cousin of Triceratops. Unlike its cousin, in addition to its small size, Protoceratops had a relatively small head crest and lacked the big brow horns so iconic of Triceratops. The other part of this pair is the predatory Velociraptor mongoliensis. Velociraptor is a name that needs no introduction, although it does require some explanation. Unlike in Jurassic Park, Velociraptor was about as tall as a turkey and probably weighed three or four times less than the much bulkier Protoceratops. Because these two animals are locked in combat and facing each other, preserved as they were 75 million years ago, the evidence is overwhelming that they were captured in a battle to the end.
As positioned, the Protoceratops is crouched down with its body and head facing to the right, whereas the Velociraptor is laid on its right side with its head pointing forward. The left hand of Velociraptor, with its three curved claws, rests across the face of Protoceratops, perhaps scratching it, but the right forearm—just below the elbow—is clamped in the strong beak of the Protoceratops. If we add missing bones, flesh, and muscle, it’s plausible that part of the right leg of the Velociraptor might have been trapped and crushed under the body of the Protoceratops. Incredibly, though, showing how this animal used its claws in close combat, the Velociraptor’s left foot is held high in the air, and its deadly, sickle-shaped claw is positioned deep within the throat region, where it might have delivered a fatal slashing blow to the Protoceratops. It would appear that the Velociraptor had the upper hand, but with its right arm trapped and right leg possibly stuck, escape was simply impossible.
Both these dinosaurs were exhausted and severely wounded. They lived in a desert with conditions similar to those of the Gobi today, so the consensus is that, perhaps due to heavy rains during a thunderstorm, a sand dune collapsed above the pair, flowing over them and burying them mid-fight in what was possibly a split second. Although this scenario seems most likely, it has also been suggested that the two were buried by a severe sandstorm or died as a direct result of the fight and were then slowly covered by drifting sand. Regardless, one thing that does not quite add up is that the Protoceratops is missing both arms, its left leg, and the end of its tail, yet the Velociraptor skeleton is complete. One suggestion is that the Velociraptor attacked and killed the Protoceratops but in doing so was trapped, eventually dying before being buried. Only later, predatory dinosaurs, perhaps other Velociraptor, found parts of the Protoceratops exposed and scavenged what they could. Additional evidence for such a feeding interaction, as the result of either scavenging or a group kill, has also been found in another example of Protoceratops, which displays various tooth-marked bones that were found in association with shed teeth matching those of Velociraptor."
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📷 Yuya Tamai 2014
Artist: Bob Nicholls
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