An unusual find in China suggests that some early mammals hunted dinosaurs for dinner.

The fossil is that of two intertwined skeletons, of a badger-like creature that killed a small beaked dinosaur. It was found at a site called “Chinese Pompeii”, where mud and debris from ancient volcanoes buried many living creatures.

“It appears to be a prehistoric hunt, captured in stone, like a frozen image,” said University of Edinburgh paleontologist Steve Brusatte, who was not involved in the study, via email.

The fossil, described Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports, shows two creatures from the Cretaceous period, 125 million years ago.

Although the mammal was much smaller, researchers believe it was attacking the dinosaur when the volcanic flow trapped them, said study author Jordan Mallon, a paleobiologist at the Canadian Museum of Nature. The mammal is perched atop the dinosaur, its paws gripping the jaw and a hind leg while its teeth sink between the ribs.

“I’ve never seen a fossil like this,” Mallon said.

The hypothesis that mammals ate dinosaur meat already existed, since another fossil revealed that a mammal died with dinosaur meat in its entrails. But the new discovery suggests the mammals may have hunted dinosaurs many times their size and weren’t just eating carrion, Mallon said.

“It turns the old story upside down,” Brusatte said. “We’ve always thought of the Age of Dinosaurs as a time when dinosaurs ruled the world and tiny mammals lurked in the shadows in terror.”

The authors acknowledge that there have been falsified fossils from this part of the world and that they took this into account when initiating the investigation. But after preparing the skeletons and analyzing the rock samples, he said, they determined that the fossil found by a farmer in 2012 was genuine and invited other scientists to study it.

The mammal in the fossil is Repenomamus robustus, the size of a house cat, Mallon said. The dinosaur, Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis, the size of an average dog, had a parrot-like beak.

This species was probably herbivorous, but other dinosaurs probably ate both. After all, a dinosaur was more likely to eat a mammal than the other way around, Mallon said.

“But now we know mammals might retaliate, at least sometimes,” he said.

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