MBA CENTRAL APTITUDE QUIZ-12
Verbal:
Early mammals conjure up images of rat or shrew-size creatures that skulked in the shadows of dinosaurs, trying to avoid being ripped limb from limb by the terrible lizards. Now it seems that the hunted sometimes became the hunter. New-found fossils reveal a baby dinosaur inside a mammal’s gut − the first direct evidence of such predation.
An international team based its conclusions on a species called Repenomamusrobustus, a mammal about as big as a Virginia opossum that lived during the Mesozoic, 130 million or so years ago. Within the rib cage of R. Robustus was the skeleton of a young dinosaur whose serrated teeth, limbs and toes mark it as Psittacosaurus, a hornless relative of triceratops that reached cow proportions in adulthood. Whereas the mammal’s bones are preserved in their anatomical position, the dinosaur’s are mostly fragmented and packed together where the stomach lies in living mammals. “The most likely explanation is that it was eaten”, concludes Jin Meng, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Fossils with stomach contents are rare. Dinosaurs with mammal’s jaws in their guts had been discovered earlier. “This is the opposite case.” Meng says of R. robustus.
Other members of Repenomamus also seemed capable of dining on dinosaurs. Among the other dog-size, shrew-like species dug up by local farmers in the Yixian formation of northeast China, where caches of fossilised feathered dinosaurs are common, researchers discovered R. giganticus. About as big as a Tasmanian devil, the creature was the biggest of its genus, reaching 12 to 14 kilograms in weight and growing to more than a metre in length. Its skull was 16 centimeters long, 50 per cent larger than that of R. robustus, the next largest species. “Big implies many things. They need more food and a larger home range to walk around in, and they have the capability to eat larger prey and resist predation from carnivorous dinosaurs”. Meng explains.
The new fossils were found buried in sandstone flecked with volcanic ash. Fossils discovered in layers above the mammal’s bones were squashed, which suggests that they dropped into a lake and were gradually covered by mud, which compressed them flat. In contrast, the Repenomamus mammals were preserved three-dimensionally articulated, suggesting that they died quickly en masse by a volcanic eruption.
Although Meng’s team, which includes colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, cannot exclude the possibility that the Repenoma family was a clan of scavengers, Meng argues that its large pointed teeth and jaws were good for catching, holding and rending other animals – abilities more indicative of a predator than a scavenger. Some of the dinosaur’s long bones were still articulated, “meaning they were swallowed in large chunks”, Meng reasons. In addition, the dinosaur’s skull was roughly a third the length of the mammal’s, “not just a snack” but a meal challenging enough to discourage a casual diner, he adds. Scavengers are also relatively rare among mammals: among extant carnivorous mammals, only two hyena species are habitual scavengers.
Palaeontologists Zhe-XiLuo of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History called the findings the first unambiguous proof that early mammals were more than insect eaters. Palaeontologists Spencer Lucas of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History agrees: “Dinosaurs are often thought of as dominating the Mesozoic, but this shows mammals weren’t above having a Dinosaur Mc Nugget”.
Verbal:
Early mammals conjure up images of rat or shrew-size creatures that skulked in the shadows of dinosaurs, trying to avoid being ripped limb from limb by the terrible lizards. Now it seems that the hunted sometimes became the hunter. New-found fossils reveal a baby dinosaur inside a mammal’s gut − the first direct evidence of such predation.
An international team based its conclusions on a species called Repenomamusrobustus, a mammal about as big as a Virginia opossum that lived during the Mesozoic, 130 million or so years ago. Within the rib cage of R. Robustus was the skeleton of a young dinosaur whose serrated teeth, limbs and toes mark it as Psittacosaurus, a hornless relative of triceratops that reached cow proportions in adulthood. Whereas the mammal’s bones are preserved in their anatomical position, the dinosaur’s are mostly fragmented and packed together where the stomach lies in living mammals. “The most likely explanation is that it was eaten”, concludes Jin Meng, a paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Fossils with stomach contents are rare. Dinosaurs with mammal’s jaws in their guts had been discovered earlier. “This is the opposite case.” Meng says of R. robustus.
Other members of Repenomamus also seemed capable of dining on dinosaurs. Among the other dog-size, shrew-like species dug up by local farmers in the Yixian formation of northeast China, where caches of fossilised feathered dinosaurs are common, researchers discovered R. giganticus. About as big as a Tasmanian devil, the creature was the biggest of its genus, reaching 12 to 14 kilograms in weight and growing to more than a metre in length. Its skull was 16 centimeters long, 50 per cent larger than that of R. robustus, the next largest species. “Big implies many things. They need more food and a larger home range to walk around in, and they have the capability to eat larger prey and resist predation from carnivorous dinosaurs”. Meng explains.
The new fossils were found buried in sandstone flecked with volcanic ash. Fossils discovered in layers above the mammal’s bones were squashed, which suggests that they dropped into a lake and were gradually covered by mud, which compressed them flat. In contrast, the Repenomamus mammals were preserved three-dimensionally articulated, suggesting that they died quickly en masse by a volcanic eruption.
Although Meng’s team, which includes colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, cannot exclude the possibility that the Repenoma family was a clan of scavengers, Meng argues that its large pointed teeth and jaws were good for catching, holding and rending other animals – abilities more indicative of a predator than a scavenger. Some of the dinosaur’s long bones were still articulated, “meaning they were swallowed in large chunks”, Meng reasons. In addition, the dinosaur’s skull was roughly a third the length of the mammal’s, “not just a snack” but a meal challenging enough to discourage a casual diner, he adds. Scavengers are also relatively rare among mammals: among extant carnivorous mammals, only two hyena species are habitual scavengers.
Palaeontologists Zhe-XiLuo of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History called the findings the first unambiguous proof that early mammals were more than insect eaters. Palaeontologists Spencer Lucas of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History agrees: “Dinosaurs are often thought of as dominating the Mesozoic, but this shows mammals weren’t above having a Dinosaur Mc Nugget”.
Directions for questions 1 to 4: These questions are based on the following information
A box contains chocolates of types A, B, C, …. The box contains 200 chocolates. A certain number of children take chocolates from the box. The first child takes a chocolate of type A. The second child takes at least twice as many chocolates of type B as that of type A taken by the first child. The third child takes at least twice as many chocolates of type C as that of type B taken by the second child, and so on. Each child takes chocolates of exactly one type. After all the children took the chocolates from the box, there were no chocolates remaining in the box.
Directions for questions 1 to 4: These questions are based on the following information
A box contains chocolates of types A, B, C, …. The box contains 200 chocolates. A certain number of children take chocolates from the box. The first child takes a chocolate of type A. The second child takes at least twice as many chocolates of type B as that of type A taken by the first child. The third child takes at least twice as many chocolates of type C as that of type B taken by the second child, and so on. Each child takes chocolates of exactly one type. After all the children took the chocolates from the box, there were no chocolates remaining in the box.