Parasite 'killed off' dinosaurs
DINOSAURS might have become extinct due to a flesh-eating bug passed on by head biting.
Jaw bones on many fossils show deterioration consistent with an infection that affects modern-days birds.
The parasite eats away at the jaw bone and can cause ulcers so severe that the host starves to death.
It commonly infects doves, pigeons, turkeys and raptors
Jacqueline Upcroft, of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Australia, said: “The disease was likely to have been so severe as to cause starvation.
“This may not have been an isolated situation but may have occurred en masse and led to the extinction of the species.”