Majungasaurus.
By using cutting edge technology
and every available piece of fossil evidence,
60-million-year-old mysteries have forensically decoded.
From their ability to hear through their feet
to their connection to modern day birds,
science unravels the stories of these prehistoric creatures.
They were the Earth's largest animals.
New technology and forensic evidence
helps paleontologists bring to life some of their final moments.
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Travel back 70 million years to the prehistoric world.
Two super continents, Laurasia and Gondwanaland, increasingly fracture.
Wild animals evolve and adapt to a violent Earth.
On Gondwanaland, volcanic activity transforms the chaotic terrain.
Africa splits from South America,
then India breaks from Africa
leaving behind a fragment that will become Madagascar.
On the lush green island,
seasonal rains, as well as extreme draughts and dramatic temperature changes,
set dinosaur against dinosaur.
In a world of vanishing resources,
predators were forced to fight for survival.
Life on Madagascar during the late Cretaceous was pretty difficult.
The world's climate was changing and it forced dinosaurs to adapt.
The larger the landmass, the less of impact these change have.
But when you are living on a small island, these changes are intensified.
So to deal with them,
dinosaurs on the island of Madagascar had to adapt in ways
that other dinosaurs would never dream of.
In 1996,
25 miles from the city of Mahajanga in northwest Madagascar,
paleontologist were working on a routine excavation.
But as they continued to dig,
it became clear that there were something strange about this particular find.
As scientists unearthed more remains,
forensic and anatomical clues began to paint a picture
of the unidentified dinosaur.
And these bones did not belong to a plant eater.
They belonged to a predator.
We can very often tell whether bones belong to carnivores or herbivores
just by looking at them.
In the big carnivorous dinosaurs, you have hollow bones.
And hollow bones, of course, can support the animals
as long as the bone around the outside is dense enough
to support the weight of the animal.
In the lab, paleontologists observed something peculiar,
marks and deep gashes in the bone.
The gashes were spaced 10 to 17 millimeters apart.
These were probably bite marks.
The scientists were eager to unravel the cause of death.
At first the paleontologists had no idea
who or what had made these markings on the bone.
But using some of the same techniques that modern forensic scientists do today,
they were able to solve the mystery
of who it was that made these injuries over 70 million years ago.
First, they needed to identify the dinosaur.
They turned to the local fossil evidence.
Found nearby was a remarkably well-preserved skull
of a large predatory dinosaur,
a meat-eating dinosaur called Majungasaurus.
It was the T-Rex of the east.
This discovery had given paleontologists
an opportunity to look inside the skull of this rare dinosaur.
Dr. Lawrence Witmer of Ohio University
leads one of the most technologically advanced dinosaur research labs in the world.
He's able to dig deeper into the stories
of bones and brain cavity than ever before.
CT scanning has opened a new door into dinosaur behavior.
CT scanning is a medical technology
that allows us to look inside an object.
But we can use that same technology on dinosaurs
to look inside their skulls, to see through the rock
to see how these animals are built.
We can look at the bony brain cavity in CT scan,
and from that, extract what the form the brain was like,
as well as all of the tissues that're surrounding that.
CT scanning of the skull of Majungasaurus
gave clues into every aspect of this predator,
its senses of vision, hearing, balance and agility.
By comparing the size and shape of the brain and inner ear canals
to those of modern birds and reptiles,
scientists have developed a rare insight into the behavior of Majungasaurus,
how it lived and how it could have fought.
At first glance, the skull reveals obvious detail.
The exterior was covered in a thick, rough texture,
ending in a three-inch horn.
that jutted from the top of the skull.
What makes this Majungasaurus look so odd
are the bumps and strange horns and spikes that stuck out all over its skull.
These are actually designed to show rival
that this male is a mature adult.
They are also designed to attract a mate.
These odd horns and spikes were probably brightly colored.
These are make-ups.
It's a signal that screams to the ladies: "Check me out!"
One of the interesting things about the horn of Majungasaurus
is that it is very rough
and the bone is very sort of cauliflower like and bumpy.
And, in fact, that bumpiness actually pertains to most of the skull.
The texture was another clue.
The male's head was not merely an ornament.
It was a weapon
that could be wielded against both rival and prey.
One of the things we think is going on with the bumpy skin of Majungasaurus
is that it relates to combat.
They are potentially, actually interacting in a very direct physical way,
head-to-head or head-to-flank kind of combat.
It's a very unusual kind of thing,
the kind of structures we don't really see in animals,
like Ceratosaurus
where the horns we see are almost delicate kind of structure.
So what we see with Majungasaurus
is a kind of structure that was built for combat.
When you look at the design of a skull of a Majungasaurus,
you can compare that to modern day big-horn sheep.
It's very heavily built and perfectly designed to take a heavy beating.
Majungasaurus thrived more than 70 million years ago.
Fossil evidence proves that the island of Madagascar
teemed with a variety of plants and animals.
But Majungasaurus was at the top of the food chain,
the ultimate predator.
Every environment has an apex predator,
that is the ultimate predator at the top of the food chain.
On North America, Tyrannosaurus-Rex was that apex predator.
But on the island of Madagascar, it was Majungasaurus.
Majungasaurus was the top predator in its community.
In general, it would've spent its day stalking around for prey,
killing something, and when it killed it, ate it, and rested for a while.
As more bones emerged from the site,
scientists began to get a clearer picture
of the size and shape of this creature.
He was a two-legged predator,
standing three meters tall,
nine meters long and weighing one ton,
the same as a baby elephant.
Along with its size and a reinforced head butting skull,
Majungasaurus had a even more dangerous mouthful of serrated teeth.
Closer inspection of the jaws would reveal that,
like a shark, Majungasaurus had rows of teeth
that continuously replaced themselves.
The teeth of Majungasaurus were pretty incredible.
They were replaced throughout its entire life.
When a tooth got dull, it would fall out and be replaced by a brand new tooth.
They were also serrated on both of front and back edges
making them perfect for slicing meat.
Majungasaurus still had a further weapon
that was capable of delivering a lethal blow,
its massive tail.
With reinforced bones and powerful muscles,
the dinosaur could wield its tail like a oversized baton.
Although Majungasaurus was a force to reckon with,
it was not without shortcomings.
Even the king of the jungle has weaknesses.
A first was its unusually small arms.
Majungasaurus's arm is incredibly short.
It's got an upper arm bone,
but its forearm has shrunken, so it's basically a wrist.
From the elbow to the hand is probably less than a foot.
It definitely does not have any functional grasping ability.
It doesn't have any slashing ability.
It's basically a vestigial arm.
Its second drawback,
its relatively short legs compared to its overall body size.
The length of dinosaur legs
certainly had an effect on how fast they run.
Animals with longer legs
were presumably faster than animals with shorter legs.
What we see in Majungasaurus
is an animal that's not built for speed.
This is an animal that's pretty fast
but still not the kind of swift footed runner
that we see in other kinds of dinosaurs.
It's estimated that Majungasaurus
may have been only be able to run at 10 to 15 miles per hour,
not much faster than the average human.
But given its densely forested environment,
speed may not have been that important to this hunter.
It didn't have to be particularly fast
because there were no really fast dinosaurs known from its environment.
So you only have to be faster than your meal.
You don't have to be faster than something else you're never gonna see.
CAT scan evidence revealed the dinosaur's third weakness,
poor vision.
With Majungasaurus,
we can look at the brain structure and see that the visual centers
are not tremendously enlarged.
They're relatively modest.
One of the really interesting aspects of the visual system
is weather these animals had binocular vision.
In another word, did their visual field overlap?
Because that actually provides depth perception.
Majungasaurus has very limited binocular vision.
The construction of their skull
made it a little bit to get that binocular vision.
So as they are sizing each other up,
they are gonna be really kind of looking from side to side,
but if one moves quickly, it's gonna get out of that binocular vision.
So there will be a lot of joggling for position between these guys,
kind of like boxers will do before they start their fight.
Somehow, a predator at the top of the food chain
was attacked and killed.
The attacker was unknown.
Fossil evidence has given scientists
insight into the behavior of Majungasaurus and their site.
But a new clue will reveal
one of the most disturbing pieces of dinosaur evidence ever unearthed.
In Madagascar, paleontologists have unearthed
the remains of a dinosaur named Majungasaurus.
The bones have deep gouges and wounds,
suggesting that a massive battle had taken place.
The bite marks were so violent that they left gashes in the bone.
Paleontologists continued to study the scene
and look more closely at the marks.
It seemed to reveal evidence
of one of the most gruesome acts in the animal kingdom,
cannibalism.
There were two Majungasauruses in this battle.
One apex predator killed another.
On the island of Madagascar, they made a pretty incredible discovery.
They found the fossilized skeleton of a Majungasaurus
with bite marks from another Majungasaurus.
This is absolute evidence that a battle took place.
One Majungasaurus killed the other.
It's commonly believed that most predatory dinosaurs were cannibals.
But this discovery would reveal the first clear evidence
of dinosaur cannibalism ever found in the prehistoric world.
When the paleontologists studied the tooth marks,
they used high powered microscope to look deeper into the evidence.
What they found were tell-tale serrations
meaning the culprit who chewed these bones
had serrated teeth and jaws powerful enough to cut the bone.
Since no other dinosaur on Madagascar
had been found with teeth this large,
pretty much ruled out all of the predators.
Measuring the width, length and serrated edges of the teeth
and calculating the spacing between the teeth and the jaw,
scientists were able to determine
that the teeth and jaws of Majungasaurus
match the gash marks in the bone almost perfectly.
Majungasaurus has serrated teeth.
Each one of those little serrations is call a denticle.
The denticle marks found in the bones
were spaced about 0.48 millimeters apart.
In studying Majungasaurus teeth,
paleontologists just discovered that they had an average spacing
for about 0.5 millimeters.
That's nearly identical to those left on the bone.
What began as a routine dig
was looking to change history.
Two Majungasaurus in a fight to the death.
These bite marks were not just the result of the fight.
One Majungasaurus appears to have eaten the other.
We know that this isn't just fighting,
not just bite marks on the snort, for example.
These are tooth marks that are on the inside bones of the body,
on leg bones and back bones and ribs
that you couldn't get to from the outside.
So clearly, at least on occasion,
Majungasaurus ate other Majungasaurus.
With what appeared to be proof that they were looking at cannibalism,
other evidence was needed to piece together
why these creatures might have fought this battle.
In addition to the CAT scans and the fossil remains,
paleontologists looked to modern animal behavior for clues.
The one thing that doesn't change in the animal kingdom is behavior.
All the animals, including man,
have the same basic behavioral traits as our ancestors.
Knowing this, paleontologists are able to look at modern life
as a way to understand the behavior of prehistoric life.
There's little doubt that a male Majungasaurus was a formidable creature.
But something that could dramatically change the dynamic of the fight
would be gender.
While studying the fossil site,
investigators came to wonder
if one of the dinosaurs in this battle had been female.
By studying the fossilized remains of several dinosaurs
and looking :00,401 --> 00:17:03,073 paleontologist attempted to find answers.
The first step was to find out
how female dinosaurs might have looked compared to males.
Majungasaurus, like most theropods, most meat eating dinosaurs,
there was probably a sexual size difference
between the males and the females.
In Tyrannosaurus-Rex we know that the biggest and battiest ones were females.
But we don't know yet because we don't have enough specimens
how Majungasaurus fit into that scheme.
Although there may have been a difference in size,
their basic skeletal design would have remain the same.
The female would've had the same short arms and legs,
sharp teeth and power tail.
But their general appearance may have been quite different.
When we look at lots of different animals today,
people are good example,
the males and the females look different.
We call that sexual dimorphism.
And a good question is this:
"Was Majungasaurus sexually dimorphic,
"did the males look different from the females?"
Once we look at theropod dinosaurs,
virtually any species where we have multiple specimens,
we do see that they tends to be
two morphs or two type once they get to adult stage.
One maybe heavier than the other, for example,
the other maybe more lightly built or gracile,
or maybe that they have a difference in crest on top of the head,
or the bump on the top of the head in the case of Majungasaurus.
Unfortunately, for Majungasaurus and most theropod dinosaurs,
we don't have a lot of specimens to work with.
But over the past two decades,
numerous fossil discoveries, including feathered dinosaurs,
have proven a relationship between birds and predatory dinosaurs.
From this fossil evidence,
paleontologists believe that, like the male birds,
the male Majungasaurus would've been more brightly colored
and adorned than the female.
In order to understand things like color and behavior of prehistoric life,
we have to look to modern life to give us those clues.
Well, Majungasaurus and birds are related.
We know that, the evidence is very clear.
And birds, the males have a much brighter color pattern.
Male birds also have strange ornamentation on their skull.
Look at a guinea fowl and look at a turkey,
you'll find that the females' skulls are relatively plain
and the males' skulls are very bright and a lot of these
flashy appendages that make them attractive.
One thing we can sort of suggest
is that animals that clearly have visual display organs,
thing on their body, is that they probably use them.
It's very reasonable to suggest
that these different structures
that we see on the skull of Majungasaurus
or even other kinds of predatory dinosaurs
are in fact the kinds of features
that would be used in courtship displays
among these different animals.
Along with skin color,
ornamentation of their skulls and their body sizes,
there was another clear different between the sexes.
The female was much more aggressive when defending her young cub.
It's a vital piece of information.
Paleontologists believe that this actually help her hone her fighting skills.
A full grown Majungasaurus is pretty much able to take care of itself,
but babies are a different matter
as a lot of animals would love to be able to snuffle you out
when you're little so that you don't ever grow to full size.
Females've got to deal with not only things that want to harm her,
but things that want to harm her young.
And there are a lot of animals that are willing
to step up against a baby than there are against an adult.
So the female's supposed to defend not only herself,
but her baby from predators.
And that's what gives her fight skills that a male will never have.
As in any investigation,
the environment plays a crucial relevance in piecing together any mystery.
The prehistoric, well, is no exception.
Scientists can make a study of the climate
and terrain in which they would have fought.
We know that the land 70 million years ago
varied from densely forested to jungle-like to swampy.
Based on the variety of plants,
Madagascar would have seen seasonal changes
and times of severe drought.
Ever green and conifer trees reaching 30 meters high
covered much of the landscape.
If you look at any forest today, Yellow Stone Park, for instance,
we've done a great job of clearing out the fallen leaves and debris
that usually litter the forest floor.
Of course, back then, that wouldn't have happened,
so moving through those forests could've been incredibly difficult
especially during a fight.
The terrain would play a vital part in these investigation.
Paleontologists realized that the bones had been moved,
and not only that,
they were moved very soon after the dinosaur died.
This suggests one thing,
a flash flood.
Looking at the geology of the dig site,
Paleontologists could see that the bones had been washed
into their final resting place.
This location was not where the battle had taken place.
It's simply where the remains of the eaten dinosaur ended up.
The evidence suggests that flood waters carried them.
In late 2007,
experts began to reconstruct a plausible explanation
of this battle from 70 million years ago.
A male Majungasaurus could have entered the territory of a female.
His motive was sex,
but she had other ideas.
When approached by a male,
the female would have been very cautious
until she understood his intentions.
To protect herself and her territory,
she would make it clear that she was no push-over.
Paleontologists think that to ensure her safety,
the female could have relied on three distinctive moves
before launching into an attack.
The first is to stand her ground.
When you approached by a rival,
the last thing you wanna do is to turn head and run.
First, it means you lose your territory,
but worse, your rival might think you are food.
The rules of animal kingdom are very clear.
Break one of these rules and you are liable to end up dead.
She would then have moved,
turning her body sideways to show the male her massive size.
Then, the flash of those razor-sharp teeth.
Bearing her teeth would send a very clear signal to an aggressor.
Once the female made her rival aware of her disposition,
it was up to him to convince her
that he was there to mate, not kill.
Mating could be a pretty dangerous thing
if the opposite of you desire has 3-inch-long serrated teeth
and a bad attitude.
The first thing she's gonna suspect
is that actually he's there to challenge her for territory.
The male had better do everything possible to show this female
that he is not a threat.
To demonstrate his intention,
the male would have begun to perform a courtship dance.
CAT scan evidence shows that the brain of Majungasaurus
was incredibly small and therefore primitive,
leading paleontologists to speculate
that this dance would have been very simple.
Certainly, given the brain size of something like Majungasaurus
which has a relatively primitive brain,
we would expect them to have the kinds of
primitive, very ritualized, courtship rituals
that we see in lizards and crocodiles today,
very stereotype, rigid kinds of courtship behaviors.
In this theory,
although the male tried his best, the female was not receptive.
Ripped from the continent of Gondwanaland
by the violent upheavals of the Earth tectonic plates,
the island of Madagascar was born.
Surrounded by sea,
the island quickly became a lush green "Garden of Eden".
As evolution forged ahead,
an extraordinary inhabitant emerged:
Majungasaurus.
In these jungles,
a colossal battle of sexes appeared to have taken place.
To help to piece together a viable scenario,
paleontologists have gathered as much information
about the competitors as possible.
The skeletal design of Majungasaurus
shows that these were very powerful animals.
But there may have been a difference in size and strength
between male and female.
We do see some differences
between the different specimens that we find in Majungasaurus.
It's hard for us to know
whether there were just differences between different individuals
or differences that we can associate to differences in sex.
Both of these animal are probably fairly comparable
in terms of their general size and strength and general capabilities.
Although these were not considered giant predators,
they were still packed with muscle.
These would've had some bearing on their speed and agility.
Majungasaurus is not necessarily a fast and agile animal.
It doesn't have to be.
It lived on an island
and the prey animals that lived with it were relatively slow.
But I think the female would've been a little bit faster
and more agile than the male.
You know that in this particular group of dinosaurs,
when you look at the attachments of the muscles and legs,
there are some slight differences between the males and females.
The fact that there's stronger shell from all, we think, the males
seems to suggest stronger muscle attachment.
That means that they may have had more powerful muscles on the legs
which may mean that, on one hand, they were stronger,
but maybe on the other hand, they were not as fast.
In addition to their formidable build,
the male and female hold a jawful of serrated teeth
and a domed head used as a battling ram.
They use both to resolve conflicts.
Although the male and female may look different,
they have basically the same weapon.
They both have that big knob on top of their head
which would be used as a ramming device.
But their teeth, their teeth are their number one weapon.
They have the same weapons, basically the same weapons.
There's no more teeth, no fewer teeth.
There's no difference in design of teeth.
It's only in what's going on in their brain
and what's going on in their automatic responses to things
that are built up over a life-time experience.
When it comes to attacking an adversary,
the sexes were probably different.
The male refined his hunting skills
to capture prey or suitable mate.
But like modern birds and reptiles,
the mother was probably more of a defensive fighter,
used to protect her offspring.
Male Majungasaurus may have these skills for the ritual combat
to fight over access to female's territory.
The females might have one situation where they have advantage.
It's going to know how to defend its young
and it's gonna fight pretty savagely.
Now if the female was actually defending its young,
then the attendant sense changes the equation.
and consequently the intensity of battle might be different.
At that point, the intensity wouldn't be just about a meal
or about territory,
it would be about her heritage, her genes and her future.
The female is gonna want to save her life.
If she has offspring nearby, she may fight to the death.
If the young is not there, she's gonna leave
because she needs to protect her ability to reproduce.
I think if you throw a young Majungasaurus,
which the female is going to try to protect him to the nest,
you kind of change things around a bit
and she's maybe not going to leave before the fight is done.
She's not gonna abandon the fight
if she feels her offspring is going to be in danger.
She'll fight for that offspring.
Life on Madagascar was a struggle for an adult Majungasaurus.
But survival for a juvenile was nearly impossible
without protection from an adult.
Being confined on the island of Madagascar
in the late Cretaceous was pretty tough.
Because what it did is it took all of dinosaurs
and forced them into a very small area.
So unlike the animals on the mainland
where the female could leave the juvenile unattended while she hunted,
on Madagascar,
because all these animals were confined in such a small place,
It was much more likely
that somebody would happen across these babies.
And when you are an unprotected baby,
there's a tremendous amount of danger.
In the dark dense forests of Madagascar,
danger came in many forms,
but one in particular.
Isolationism had them effect
that could have turned this paradise into a prison,
even a death sentence.
On an island where you are separated from others,
it means the chances of meeting mate from the opposite sex are reduced.
And more importantly, it means that those that you meet,
you can very well be very closely related to,
so the number one problem is inbreed.
And with inbreeding comes a couple of very nasty side effects,
like, you have less of tolerance of disease,
your bone structure could be weaker,
you are a lot more susceptible to early death.
But the number one problem with inbreeding
is that a possibility of creating mutations exist.
Majungasaurus may have had that ugly face
because it was the end result of inbreeding.
Relying on evidence collected from the dig site
and knowledge of modern animal behavior,
experts recreates a plausible scenario
where a female competes with a male
in a battle to the death.
Planet Earth,
70 million years ago,
a male Majungasaurus in on a prowl for a mate.
He picks up the scent of a female Majungasuarus.
He knows it's a female simply by her scent.
He moves in cautiously, knowing that if she has a mate,
there can be a confrontation.
Slowly, cautiously,
he moves further in her territory
following her scent.
He walks his way towards the center of her territory
looking for this female.
He finds her.
She's in a small open clearing surrounded by very dense vegetation.
He moves in,
and begins to demonstrate his intentions.
He's not aggressive.
He's simply trying to woo her into mating.
He goes to a series of steps
designed to put her into a non-defensive mood.
She doesn't react the way he expects and he doesn't understand it.
The female is uninterested in his advances.
He sways slowly back and forth again
to try to describe to her his intention.
She refuses to accept his advances.
She bears her teeth and hisses with a deep rumbling grunt.
This is a clear massage that she is looking for a fight.
The Majungasaurus male continues his dance to try to entice her,
but she will not respond.
She continues in an aggressive posture.
The male tries to shift his position,
perhaps put her in a different area,
and see if that will change her mood,
But the female's focus is not exclusively on the male.
As he moves to the side, he realizes
that hidden behind her is her offspring.
The male knows immediately.
That's the reason why the female is not responsive
to his reproductive dance.
The male realizes that the female will not be responsive
as long as her offspring is alive.
He knows he's got to get rid of that baby.
In his brain, his mind switches over from reproduction to killing.
He needs to take out that baby
and he needs to do it without being killed himself.
The female becomes suspicious of the male's sudden change.
Her maternal instincts shift into overdrive.
She knows he's seen the baby.
She puts herself between the baby and the male
as the male slowly begins to outflank her and outmaneuver her
to have access to the baby.
The baby lays motionless,
but the male has already spotted him.
The male lowers his head and rushes in,
mouth agape, trying to grab the baby.
But the female is quick to react,
and lowers her head, and rams the male with incredible power.
The male being bigger
recovers relatively quickly and turns to face the female.
He knows he may have to attack the female
in order to get to the juvenile.
He doesn't want to kill the female,
but he will if he believes his life is in jeopardy.
Although the male is larger in size,
the female can match that with incredible velocity.
She's defending her young and will fight to the death.
The male turns his attention back to the female.
She knows that he's seen her offspring.
Enraged, she kicks up dirt like a bull
ploughing the ground before charging.
The male has got to be careful.
He knows a protective mother can be extremely violent,
but his reproductive urges outweigh caution.
They go through a serious steps,
each trying to intimidate the other.
But it doesn't work.
The male is intent on reproduction
and the female is intent on defending her young.
The male is intent on killing that juvenile
and the female is intent on defending him.
The male again moves in for the kill.
But the female shift sideways
and swats him with her powerful tail.
The male absorbs the blow and regains his footing.
He launches a second front assault.
The female again faults his advances.
The male attempts to lure the female further away from her baby.
He makes a series of mock charges
and draws back with each one.
Once she's farther enough away from the baby,
the male rushes her head on.
She trips on the log and falls to the ground.
This is opportunity the male has been waiting for.
The female Majungasaurus made one fatal error.
She was so focused on defending her baby,
she lost track of her environment.
When you place a big foot like Majungasaurus has on the ground,
you'd better be assured of you footing and she wasn't.
And that's what tripped her up
and gave the male his opportunity.
The male advances towards the defenseless baby.
With the female out of the picture,
he sees his best chance to go for the kill.
With his razor sharp teeth, he grabs the unguarded baby.
Although the male has made the first kill,
this battle is far from over.
The male Majungasaurus has this baby in his jaws.
He shakes and crushes it with tremendous force.
The juvenile lays helpless in his jaws.
For a brief moment, the jungle is silent.
Then suddenly,
The female charges into view.
The mother goes for the jugular.
She now launches an attack on the male
and grabs him by the rear of the neck.
Using all the power she has,
she crushes the vertebra in the male's neck.
The male drops the baby as he slumps to the ground.
He's unable to move.
She's severed his spinal cord.
He's completely helpless but still alive.
The female leans down and sniffs her baby
to look for signs of live.
There's absolutely no movement and she knows the baby's dead.
Although she risked her life to save her young,
the female Majungasaurus is incapable of grief.
A brain of a dinosaur works like a light switch.
There's an on and there's an off.
They only think of one thing at a time.
They live in the very moment of their end.
When she realized that her baby was dead.
The female Majungasaurus's brain
switched over from maternal to dinner.
She now sees her baby as a food source.
She's got to replenish the calorie she burnt fighting the male.
Her baby is the first course.
The male is the main course.
Not fully sated,
she turns her attention to her second food source.
He's still alive, but he can't move.
He makes a perfect target and he's gonna get eaten alive.
She leans over,
rips open his stomach
and continues her feeding frenzy.
The female Majungasaurus
shoves her head into the stomach cavity of the male.
She's seeking the most nutritious part.
She pulls her blood covered nose out of the stomach
and in her jaws are the liver.
This is the most precious part of her prey.
The liver is usually the first thing predators are going to eat.
It's the largest organ in the body, and more importantly,
it's rich in vitamins and iron.
And this is something predatory dinosaurs crave.
The dinosaur will continue to gorge until her gut is full.
This is not an act of vengeance.
The female Majungasaurus eats the male for sustenance,
not to get even for what he did to her young.
Although these creatures appeared evenly matched,
The male's miscalculations and missed opportunities cost him his life.
And the male Majungasaurus found this baby unguarded,
it would have killed it.
When the female were to return,
she would instantly go into reproductive mode
because she didn't have a baby to defend.
But because she was there defending the young,
the moment the male killed it
she instantly attack it in an effort to save the baby.
Despite the female's victory,
her species eventually lost the bigger battle.
They went extinct 65 million years ago.
Majungasaurus faced the exact same consequences
all animals do during an environmental change.
The island of Madagascar was drifting further out the sea.
Plant lives suffered first.
As those plants began to disappear,
herbivores that lived on them began to disappear.
That left Majungasaurus with nothing left on the menu
except for another Majungasaurus.
Paleontologist are currently looking for more evidence
about this elusive dinosaur.
As people continue to explore Madagascar for more fossils,
some of the things we really like to see about Majungasaurus
are: "Are there really differences between the sexes?"
And in order to test the idea,
we need more skulls.
Scientist continue to search for the differences
between the sexes of this dinosaur species.
But one thing is certain.
70 million years ago,
One Majungasaurus showed another who was boss
in the prehistoric food chain of Madagascar.