Fossils evidence indicates that dinosaurs ate the first birds, as scientists long suspected.

Paleontologists have seen a fossil bird inside a dinosaur’s stomach making it the first known evidence that dinosaurs ate their winged relatives.

The remains showed some clues on how and what these huge reptiles used to eat and how they hunted their prey.

Jingmai O’Connor led the study together with the researchers from Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. They have seen an early bird’s fossil inside the ribcage of a fossilized Micraptor gui, which is a winged therapod. The bird was classified to be an Enantiornithe, which is among the early bird species.

There was no sign of chewing and the bird’s fossil was intact, so paleontologists presumed that the bird was wholly ingested.

About Enantiornithes

Enantiornithes were primitive birds that retained teeth and clawed fingers on both wings but otherwise resembled modern birds.

Fifty species of enantiornithes have been named, some based on single bones. They went extinct along with the dinosaurs and left no living descendants.

Ornithothoraces were other major types of birds at the time and probably the prey of dinosaurs as well.