This Ancient 'Hell Chicken' Might Be the First Known Fruit-Loving Dinosaur, Revealing a Whole New Cretaceous Lifestyle

Infernogallus jamesi had beak and mouth adaptations that hint it could mash soft foods, like today’s frugivorous birds. The dinosaur probably munched on fruits resembling modern-day cherries and peaches, and may have helped spread seeds via its poop

Margherita Bassi | Daily Correspondent

November 5, 2026 11:01 a.m.

When it comes to the Late Cretaceous period’s main characters, people tend to think of the terrifying, carnivorous Tyrannosaurus rex or the huge, long-necked, herbivorous sauropods. But the menu some 66 million to 100 million years ago offered more than just meat and veggies, and researchers have finally discovered evidence of a species taking advantage of it.

In a study published October 10 in the journal Nature Communications, researchers describe what might be the first known dinosaur that ate mostly fruit. The newly described Infernogallus jamesi had a mouth and jaw adapted to chewing soft foods similar to today’s frugivorous parrots. The findings shed new light on Cretaceous ecology and suggest that dinosaurs were more diverse than previously thought.

“It has been proposed before that some groups of dinosaurs ate fruits, but there was ​never evidence to back it up,” study co-author Thomas Dudgeon, an evolutionary ecologist at the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, tells Reuters’ Will Dunham.

The genus name Infernogallus means “hell chicken.” That’s because of the creature’s small size and because the fossils, including a nearly complete skull and partial skeleton, were found in the Hell Creek Formation, a famous boneyard that stretches across Montana, the Dakotas and Wyoming. The species name jamesi honors the grandfather of one of the co-authors, who sparked the scientist’s love for paleontology.

I. jamesi weighed an estimated 25 pounds and was about the size of a turkey. It was one of the smallest caenagnathids—a group of beaked, two-legged, feathered dinosaurs—and lived in the same region and at the same time as the fearsome T. rex, around 67 million years ago. But the most notable aspect of the newly identified species was its chewing abilities.

“It’s pretty rare for animals to become specialized for a diet of fruit, so when it happens, it comes with some remarkable adaptations,” Dudgeon says in a statement. “The anatomy of Infernogallus is bizarre among dinosaurs, and we quickly realized that we were dealing with something special.”

Did you know? Ancient plant pollination

Flowers are essential for pretty much all modern fruit-bearing plants. Their bright colors and scents serve as flashy billboards to attract pollinators. But before they evolved around 130 million years ago, plants used infrared heat to lure pollinating beetles, according to a study published in 2025.

The team created a digital reconstruction of the skull by CT scanning the fossils. Three key features pointed to a fruit-based diet: mouth muscles that enabled back-and-forth chewing, a special joint that allowed the jaw to slide forward, and ridges and grooves inside the beak that could help process soft materials like fruits. Today, this muscle organization exists in mammals with complex chewing abilities, including humans, as well as some fruit-eating birds like the vulturine parrot.

“This is a fantastic new dinosaur discovery,” Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland who did not participate in the study, tells Science’s Taylor Mitchell Brown. “This new species finally reveals the face of a dinosaur fruit eater,” he adds. “We can now be sure that at least some dinosaurs were enjoying Cretaceous fruit salads.”

I. jamesi’s fruit salad probably included drupes, which had soft flesh around a hard seed or pit, similar to today’s cherries and peaches, Greg Funston, lead author of the study and a paleontologist at Stony Brook University, tells the outlet. In fact, when Funston and colleagues investigated the evolution of the hell chicken and drupes, they discovered that the dinosaur’s lineage started to adapt to its specialized diet right as these fruits became larger and more abundant. The finding represents a rare clear connection between dinosaur diversity and the evolution of flowering plants.

Furthermore, fruit-eating dinosaurs may have helped these plants spread by dispersing their seeds through their feces. The fossil record shows that during the Cretaceous, flowering plants became the most prominent land-based vegetation.

“We know that these big-seeded fruits were proliferating and spreading, ​and it seems like caenagnathids could have fit this role—although we feel more evidence is needed before drawing that link confidently,” Funston tells Reuters.

You Might Also Like

• November 5, 2026

• November 5, 2026

• November 5, 2026

• November 4, 2026

• November 4, 2026

• More about:
• Birds
• Cool Finds
• Dinosaurs
• Ecology
• Flowers
• Food
• Fossils
• New Research
• Paleontology
• Plants