What's more appetizing than a mouthful of fluffy feathers? Not much, apparently, for a rare type of arthropod from the planet's remote past.
That's because around 105 million years ago, ancient beetles fed on the feathers of the dinosaurs. In fact, fossilized remains trapped in amber recently revealed this relationship between the arthropods and the theropods, according to a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
(Credit: CN IGME-CSIC) The larval molts of the beetles were found in the immediate proximity of theropod dinosaur feathers.
