Young dinosaurs roamed together, died together

A herd of young birdlike dinosaurs met their death on the muddy margins of a lake some 90 million years ago, according to a team of Chinese and American palaeontologists that excavated the site in the Gobi Desert in western Inner Mongolia. The Sudden sudden death of the herd in a mud trap provides a rare snapshot of social behaviour. Composed entirely of juveniles of a single species of ornithomimid dinosaur (Sinornithomimus dongi), the herd suggests that immature individuals were left to fend for themselves when adults were preoccupied with nesting or brooding…