Dinosaurs of a feather flocked together

Dinosaurs were social animals with gregarious behaviour who lived and died together in groups, a new study suggests, contradicting a long-held belief that these gigantic creatures were solitary, vicious monsters.

"The common mythology of dinosaurs depicts solitary, vicious monsters running around eating everything," said Gregory Funston, PhD student at the University of Alberta in Canada.

"Our discovery demonstrates that dinosaurs are more similar to modern animals than people appreciate. Although the players are different, this evidence shows that dinosaurs were social beings with gregarious behaviour who lived and died together in groups," said Funston.

The discovery comes from a site in Mongolia, first encountered by paleontologists a decade ago. The site contained thousands of shards of destroyed bone, belying the telltale evidence of a previous discovery by fossil poachers.

After conducting additional field work, scientists found a bonebed with an assemblage of Avimimus dinosaurs, who were extremely rare prior to this discovery.

Funston said that though it is common knowledge that modern birds form flocks, this is the first evidence of flocking behaviour in bird-like dinosaurs.

"With an assemblage like this, you can not really understand why the dinosaurs died together unless you see the field site," said Funston.

"We can tell that they were living together around the time of death, but the mystery still remains as to why," said Funston.

The discovery highlights the potential trend of increasing gregariousness and social behaviour in dinosaurs.

"There are groups of dinosaurs that become social towards the end of the Cretaceous. What still remains to be solved is whether this increasing trend is based on dinosaur behaviour or it if it's because of how the fossils were preserved," Funston said.

Bonebeds provide good evidence that the animals were living together in herds or groups. Though rare in the Jurassic and Triassic, they dominate the Cretaceous period.

However, this is the first discovery of a bonebed of bird-like dinosaurs.

The finding was published in the journal Scientific Reports.