14 DAY TRIAL // A study published earlier this week in the journal Scientific Reports describes a pair of dinosaurs that were not too long ago found entombed together in present-day Mongolia's Gobi Desert and that paleontologists say died when a sand dude fell on top of them and buried them.
Researcher Scott Persons with Canada's University of Alberta and colleagues detail that the pair, a male and a female, were both oviraptors. They died about 75 million years ago, most likely while wooing each other. Hence, paleontologists nicknamed them Romeo and Juliet.
An investigation of their fossilized remains revealed that, although about the same size and age, these two oviraptors were not identical. On the contrary, Romeo had much larger tail bones than Juliet, indicating that, just like modern peacocks, it used its physique to attract mates.
“Our theory was that these large feather fans were used for the same purpose as the feather fans of many modern ground birds, like turkeys, peacocks and prairie chickens: they were used to enhance courtship displays,” researcher Scott Persons said in a statement.
As illustrated in the image accompanying this article, oviraptors were not all that different to the birds that now populate the planet. True, they couldn't fly, but neither can ostriches or emus. They were predatory creatures and walked the Earth during the late Cretaceous period.