Creative reconstruction of a Mussaurus patagonicus nest. Credit: Jorge Gonzalez
Fossilized remains of sauropodomorphs– big, long-necked herbivores that lived during the Mesozoic Era– may offer the earliest evidence of herd living in dinosaurs, according to a research study published in Scientific Reports.
Diego Pol and coworkers discovered the fossilized skeletal remains of 69 individuals and 100 eggs coming from the species Mussaurus patagonicus in the Laguna Colorada Formation in Patagonia, Argentina. The authors found that the majority of the eggs were set up into clusters of in between 8 and 30 eggs. X-ray imaging of 5 of these clusters revealed that eggs consisted of embryos of Mussaurus patagonicus and were organized in 2 to 3 layers within trenches, recommending that they were contained within nests within a typical breeding ground.
The authors analyzed the size and type of bone tissue of the skeletal remains to determine the ages of the fossilized individuals. They recognized a cluster of 11 juveniles aged less than a years of age, 2 grownups that were discovered together, and nine individuals that were older than juveniles but more youthful than grownups. The authors recommend that the presence of age-specific clusters of individuals in the very same area might indicate that M. patagonicus resided in herds throughout their lives but mainly associated with others their own age within herds. Analysis of the rocks surrounding the remains suggests that the remains are roughly 193 million years old, pre-dating previous records of complex social behavior among dinosaurs by over 40 million years.
New research study on a huge fossil website in Patagonia shows that a few of the earliest dinosaurs, the Mussaurus patagonicus, lived in herds and recommends that this behavior may have been one of the keys to the success of dinosaurs. Credit: Jorge Gonzalez
The authors hypothesize that the development of complex social behavior among sauropodomorphs might have accompanied increases in body size that took place between 227 and 208 million years earlier. Fulfilling the increased energy requirements connected with bigger body sizes might have required M. patagonicus to coordinate their habits and form herds in order to forage over big distances, they recommend.
For more on this research study:
Referral: “Earliest evidence of herd-living and age segregation amongst dinosaurs” by Diego Pol, Adriana C. Mancuso, Roger M. H. Smith, Claudia A. Marsicano, Jahandar Ramezani, Ignacio A. Cerda, Alejandro Otero and Vincent Fernandez, 21 October 2021, Scientific Reports.DOI: 10.1038/ s41598-021-99176-1.
X-ray imaging of 5 of these clusters exposed that eggs consisted of embryos of Mussaurus patagonicus and were organized in 2 to three layers within trenches, recommending that they were consisted of within nests within a common breeding ground.
The authors suggest that the presence of age-specific clusters of people in the very same area could indicate that M. patagonicus lived in herds throughout their lives however primarily associated with others their own age within herds. Analysis of the rocks surrounding the remains suggests that the remains are roughly 193 million years old, pre-dating previous records of complex social habits amongst dinosaurs by over 40 million years.