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Many of the mightiest prehistoric beasts actually preferred leafy greens over raw flesh.
The latest news from this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal will stomp on your hopes – and everything you learned in fourth-grade science.
It turns out that many of the bone-crushing, flesh-ripping dinosaurs in the theropod family, which includes the mighty T-Rex and Velociraptor, were actually veggie eaters. The researchers studied 90 theropods, determining that many of them, particularly those with “bird-like” features, preferred a leafy green diet.
(More from NewsFeed: The Newest Velociraptor Cousin.)
Study author Dr. Lindsay Zanno writes in the article, “Most theropods are clearly adapted to a predatory lifestyle, but somewhere on the line to birds, predatory dinosaurs went soft.” It may have been necessary to their survival to learn to love their vegetables, because as the continents broke apart and climates changed, so did the available food choices.
(More on TIME.com: See one of the newest dinosaur discoveries.)
Maybe vegetables will indeed help us live longer. Hear that, kids? (via Gizmodo)