Published 09/2019 – updated 09/18/2026
In 1971, a Polish-Mongolian expedition in the Gobi Desert discovered one of the most remarkable fossils ever found: a Velociraptor mongoliensis and a Protoceratops andrewsi apparently locked in mortal combat.¹
These were not simply two dinosaur skeletons found near one another. Their bodies were preserved physically intertwined in what has become famously known as the “Fighting Dinosaurs.”
The Velociraptor has its large sickle-shaped foot claw embedded near the neck of the crouching Protoceratops. In turn, the Protoceratops appears to have bitten and broken the Velociraptor’s right arm, while the predator’s other hand grips the head of the Protoceratops.¹
This remarkable fossil appears to preserve an actual moment of animal behavior: predator and prey struggling with one another when both were suddenly overwhelmed.
Buried in the Middle of Battle
The American Museum of Natural History describes the evidence quite dramatically:
“Then, suddenly, they were buried alive!”²
An earlier American Museum description similarly stated:
“A sudden sand flow may have quickly buried these foes, capturing them in this fighting position.”³
Whatever the exact cause, rapid burial is clearly required to explain the extraordinary preservation.
The American Museum currently proposes that an avalanche of sand swept over the animals while they were fighting. It also notes that rainstorms may have triggered sand avalanches in this ancient environment.¹
Other researchers have discussed alternative details of exactly how the animals died and how their bodies may have shifted after death.⁴ Yet the extraordinary association of the two skeletons remains. A peer-reviewed study described the specimen as preserving the animals “locked in combat at the time of death and burial,” while acknowledging that the precise circumstances of their deaths remain debated.⁵
A Moment Frozen in Stone
Consider what had to occur: Two living dinosaurs were engaged in violent physical combat. One had its claw at the other’s neck. The other had its opponent’s arm caught in its jaws. Before the animals could separate, escape, or have their remains scattered, they were overwhelmed and buried. This is not evidence of animals slowly being covered by sediment over thousands of years.
The burial event itself had to be sudden.
The surrounding Djadokhta Formation contains other remarkably well-preserved dinosaur fossils, and the American Museum reports that some animals found there appear to have died while attempting to dig themselves out of sand.¹ The Fighting Dinosaurs therefore provide spectacular evidence that catastrophic sediment deposition can entomb animals rapidly enough to preserve not merely their skeletons, but an apparent moment of behavior. The fossil by itself does not tell us the geographic extent of the catastrophe that buried these animals. That requires examination of the surrounding geology. But it does demonstrate something important about fossil formation:
Rapid, catastrophic burial can preserve animals in circumstances that slow, ordinary deposition could not.
These two dinosaurs did not simply die and gradually disappear beneath accumulating sediment. They appear to have been overtaken while literally fighting for their lives.
Sources
¹ American Museum of Natural History, “Fighting Dinosaurs.”
https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/ology-cards/038-fighting-dinosaurs
² American Museum of Natural History, “Fighting Dinos.”
https://www.amnh.org/explore/ology/paleontology/fighting-dinos2
³ American Museum of Natural History, “The Fighting Dinosaurs.”
Archived AMNH exhibition description.
⁴ Barsbold, R. (2016). “The Fighting Dinosaurs: The position of their bodies before and after death.” Paleontological Journal, 50, 1412–1417.
https://doi.org/10.1134/S0031030116120042
⁵ Hone, D. W. E., Choiniere, J. N., Sullivan, C., Xu, X., Pittman, M., and Tan, Q. (2010). “New evidence for a trophic relationship between the dinosaurs Velociraptor and Protoceratops.” Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 291, 488–492.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2010.03.028
In the Gobi Desert of Mongolia in 1971 a battle was forever preserved by fossilization between a Velociraptor and a Protoceratops. The Velociraptor has embedded its deadly foot claw into the neck of the crouching Protoceratops, near the region that housed the blood supply for the head. In turn, the Protoceratops appears to have bitten and broken the right arm of the Velociraptor, whose left hand grips the head of the Protoceratops.
The American Museum of Natural History remarks about the evidence of sudden burial, “A sudden sand flow may have quickly buried these foes, capturing them in this fighting position”.
The American Museum of Natural History remarks about the evidence of sudden burial, “A sudden sand flow may have quickly buried these foes, capturing them in this fighting position”. That is quite a sand flow to cover tens of tons of animals and leave them unable to move. What catastrophe could cause these massive animals to be suddenly covered in the middle of a battle?
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/fighting-dinos/the-fighting-dinosaurs/
