The Hell Chicken: Infernogallus jamesi

Publication Info:

Transcript:

Gregory F. Funston et al., Fruit-eating adaptations in a Late Cretaceous oviraptorosaur (Theropoda), Nature Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-78343-w

Meet Infernogallus jamesi, the "Hell Chicken"! The newest dinosaur from America's Hell Creek. This Oviraptor relative from the caenagnathid side of the oviraptor family tree was about the size of a turkey, but with a very unusual beak. A beak that's so weird it could be changing what paleontologists and paleobotanists know about plant evolution.

Episode 359

Notes:

Have you met the hell chicken yet? Cause we may actually have to thank it for why we have fruit. Meet this brand new dinosaur, Infernogallus jamesi. It's a caenagnathid related to dinosaurs like oviraptor and more closely related to dinosaurs like Anzu. They're both within Oviraptorosauria. Oviraptor being on the oviraptorid day side of the family tree and Anzu and Infernogallus being in Caenagnathidae and I'm sorry, I can already feel your eyes glazing over. Anyway, Infernogallus literally means hell chicken. I'm not just being dramatic calling it that, but its similarities to another very different bird are what's actually making headlines. At a glance, this 26-lb turkey-sized dinosaur looks a lot like other oviraptor relatives and that's fair. It has a lot in common with them. But, luckily, it has a remarkably complete skull and that's rare with these dinosaurs. They tend to be very fragmentary. They are fragile little guys. And it's complete enough that paleontologists were able to get really good CT scan information and they discovered that it's much more consistent with some parrots. We're not talking about the crazy high bite force take off a chunk of your finger parrots. We're we're talking about the exact opposite because uh the hell chicken wasn't exactly cracking bones or even cracking open nuts. Its jaw was designed for sliding back and forth in place. That mixed with the grinding surfaces on its beak and its complete lack of gastroliths or stomach stones indicates it was most likely eating soft fleshy fruits and spitting out the seeds like some parrots. This dinosaur lines up pretty perfectly with the spread and diversification of Cretaceous fruiting plants. Meaning that dinosaurs like Infernogallus could be a big part of why fruiting plants thrived on our planet and even a big part of why we still have them today. But, it's obviously going to take a lot more research to find out how well that idea holds up. As usual, if you want more information, here's the source.