This dinosaur was among the first ever to be found and named by researchers, in 1836, but it still surprises scientists with brand-new information about how the earliest dinosaurs evolved and lived.
Antonio Ballell, PhD trainee in Bristols School of Earth Sciences and lead author of the research study, said: “The University of Bristol houses a substantial collection of perfectly preserved Thecodontosaurus fossils that were discovered around Bristol. The incredible thing about these fossilized bones is that many maintain the scars and rugosities that the limb musculature left on them with its attachment.”
These functions are exceptionally important in scientific terms to presume the shape and direction of the limb muscles. Reconstructing muscles in extinct types requires this sort of remarkable preservation of fossils, however likewise an excellent understanding of the muscle anatomy of living, carefully associated species.
Antonio Ballell included: “In the case of dinosaurs, we have to look at modern crocodilians and birds, that form a group that we call archosaurs, meaning judgment reptiles. Dinosaurs are extinct members of this family tree, and due to evolutionary similarity, we can compare the muscle anatomy in birds and crocodiles and study the scars that they leave on bones to rebuild the position and identify of those muscles in dinosaurs.”
Professor Emily Rayfield, co-author of the research study, stated: “These sort of muscular restorations are fundamental to understand functional elements of the life of extinct organisms. We can use this details to imitate how these animals ran and strolled with computational tools.”
From the size and orientation of its limb muscles, the authors argue that Thecodontosaurus was quite nimble and most likely used its forelimbs to understand things rather of strolling.
This contrasts with its later family members, the giant sauropods, which partly achieved these big body sizes by shifting to a quadrupedal posture. The muscular anatomy of Thecodontosaurus appears to indicate that crucial functions of later sauropod-line dinosaurs had actually already progressed in this early species.
Professor Mike Benton, another co-author, said: “From an evolutionary point of view, our research study includes more pieces to the puzzle of how the locomotion and posture altered during the advancement of dinosaurs and in the line to the huge sauropods.
” How were limb muscles modified in the development of multi-ton quadrupeds from small bipeds? Reconstructing the limb muscles of Thecodontosaurus provides us brand-new information of the early stages of that crucial evolutionary shift.”
Recommendation: “Walking with early dinosaurs: appendicular myology of the Late Triassic sauropodomorph Thecodontosaurus antiquus” by Antonio Ballell, Emily J. Rayfield and Michael J. Benton, 19 January 2022, Royal Society Open Science.DOI: 10.1098/ rsos.211356.
This research study was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
Limb muscles of the Bristol dinosaur, Thecodontosaurus antiquus. Credit: Artwork by Gabriel Ugueto
New research study led by the University of Bristol has revealed how huge 50-ton sauropod dinosaurs, like Diplodocus, progressed from much smaller sized forefathers, like the wolf-sized Thecodontosaurus.
In a new study published on January 19, 2022, in the journal Royal Society Open Science, scientists provide a restoration of the limb muscles of Thecodontosaurus, detailing the anatomy of the most essential muscles associated with motion.
Thecodontosaurus was a small to medium sized two-legged dinosaur that roamed around what today is the United Kingdom during the Triassic duration (around 205 million years ago).