Fossil teeth suggest dinosaurs ate seaweed washed ashore 100 million years ago

The researchers examined fossils from ancient coastal environments associated with the Western Interior Seaway, a vast inland sea that divided North America during the Cretaceous. More than 100 million years ago, the boundary between land and sea may have been a little less distinct than it looks on a map. Along the ancient coastlines of North America, storms regularly swept marine material onto beaches, creating an unexpected source of food for animals living on land. A new research suggests that some dinosaurs and the animals they fed on may have taken advantage of this coastal buffet, incorporating nutrients that ultimately came from the ocean into their bodies. The finding offers evidence that marine and terrestrial food webs were connected during the Cretaceous, much as they are in some coastal ecosystems today, states a news report by Phys Org. Scroll down to read the interesting details of the findings.Following the carbon trailThe study, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, examined the chemical signatures preserved in fossil teeth. Researchers focused on carbon isotopes, particularly the ratio between carbon-12 and carbon-13, which can provide clues about an an...