Scientists have discovered the first-ever record of a fossil tumourous facial swelling in the jaw of a 69 million-year-old dwarf duck-billed dinosaur.
An international group of researchers, including Kate Acheson from University of Southampton in the UK, have documented a type of non-cancerous facial tumour, which is found in humans, mammals and some modern reptiles, but never before encountered in fossil animals.
"This discovery is the first ever described in the fossil record and the first to be thoroughly documented in a dwarf dinosaur," said Acheson.
"Telmatosaurus transsylvanicus is known to be close to the root of the duck-billed dinosaur family tree, and the presence of such a deformity early in their evolution provides us with further evidence that the duck-billed dinosaurs were more prone to tumours than other dinosaurs," she said.
The hadrosaur fossil, estimated to be approximately 69-67 million years old, was discovered in the 'Valley of the Dinosaurs' in Transylvania, western Romania, researchers said.
"It was obvious that the fossil was deformed when it was found more than a decade ago but what caused the outgrowth remained unclear until now," said Zoltan Csiki-Sava from University of Bucharest in Romania.
Researchers used Micro-CT scanning facilities and to 'peek' un-intrusively inside the peculiar Telmatosaurus jawbone.
The scans suggested that the dinosaur suffered from a condition known as an 'ameloblastoma', a tumourous, benign, non-cancerous growth known to afflict the jaws of humans and other mammals, and some modern reptiles too, researchers said.
"The discovery of an ameloblastoma in a duck-billed dinosaur documents that we have more in common with dinosaurs than previously realised. We get the same neoplasias," said Bruce Rothschild from Northeast Ohio Medical University in the US.
It is unlikely that the tumour caused the dinosaur any serious pain during its early stages of development, just as in humans with the same condition, but researchers can tell from its size that this particular dinosaur died before it reached adulthood.
"We know from modern examples that predators often attack a member of the herd that looks a little different or is even slightly disabled by a disease," said Csiki-Sava.
"The tumour in this dinosaur had not developed to its full extent at the moment it died, but it could have indirectly contributed to its early demise," he said.
The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
