Long before North America’s paddlefish population had to be wary of snaggers’ hooks, they apparently faced another hazard — falling dinosaurs.
In 1938, the fossilized remains of a duck-billed dinosaur, also known as a hadrosaur, were found in northeastern Montana. Among the hadrosaur’s bones were found the fossil remains of a paddlefish. Hadrosaurs were plant-eaters, so the fish didn’t get there by being eaten. Instead, it’s theorized what likely happened is either the dying dinosaur collapsed into the water, fell directly on the paddlefish and fatally injured it or the paddlefish swam into the ribcage of the decaying dinosaur and became trapped.