A making of the sauropod known as Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum, which had a 15-meter-long neck. Credit: © Júlia dOliveira
With their powerful bodies and long necks, sauropod dinosaurs have caught peoples imagination considering that the first fairly total fossils were found in the United States in the late 1800s. The initial specimen that the Natural History Museums Dippy was cast from was amongst these discoveries.
Now a worldwide team led by Stony Brook University paleontologist Dr. Andrew J. Moore, and consisting of Prof. Paul Barret, Merit Researcher, from the Londons Natural History Museum, has reported that a Late Jurassic Chinese sauropod called Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum sported a 50-foot (15-meter) long neck.
The discovery comes as part of a paper that aims to document the diversity and evolutionary history of the family Mamenchisauridae, a group of particularly long-necked sauropod dinosaurs that wandered East Asia and potentially other parts of the world from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous (around 174– 114 million years ago).
Lower jaw and 2 of the vertebrae connected together. Credit: Trustees of the Natural History Museum
Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum was discovered in around 162-million-year-old rocks from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of northwest China in 1987 by the China– Canada Dinosaur Project group, for which it was named in 1993. At approximately 15.1 meters, its neck was more than six times longer than the necks of giraffes and 1.5 times the length of a double-decker bus! This possibly makes it the longest neck of any animal to have actually ever existed.
For sauropods, the long neck was among the keys to accomplishing big body size. To power such a big body, sauropods needed to be effective at gathering food, whichs precisely what a long neck was developed for. A sauropod might stand in one area and graze the surrounding vegetation, saving energy while taking in lots of food. Having a long neck probably also permitted sauropods to shed excess temperature by increasing their area, similar to the ears of elephants. This lifestyle was exceptionally effective with the sauropod family tree appearing early in dinosaur evolutionary history and continuing till the last days of the Mesozoic, when an asteroid cleaned out the majority of the dinosaurs, except for the loved ones of contemporary birds.
Lower jaw and two of the vertebrae linked together. Credit: Trustees of the Natural History Museum
The concern of which sauropod had the longest neck is not a basic one to answer. The largest sauropods tend to be a few of the most badly understood as it is extremely difficult to completely bury such a large animal in sediment, the first stage required for fossilization. Poor conservation of these specimens and their closest loved ones frequently makes quotes of their neck length speculative.
Although Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum is known only from a handful of bones from the neck and skull, the research study team was able to rebuild its evolutionary relationships and hence make contrasts to the uncommonly total skeletons of its closest loved ones. This allowed them to conclude that Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum had a neck roughly 15.1 meters long, the longest of any recognized sauropod.
Lead author Dr. Andrew J. Moore, Stony Brook University paleontologist, stated, “All sauropods were huge, however jaw-droppingly long necks didnt develop just once.
” Mamenchisaurids are very important since they pressed the limits on the length of time a neck can be and were the first family tree of sauropods to do so. With a 15-meter-long neck, it looks like Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum may be a record-holder– a minimum of up until something longer is found.”
Prof Paul Barrett studying the Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum specimen in the Paleozoological Museum of China in Beijing. Credit: Trustees of the Natural History Museum
The concern of how sauropods handled to evolve such long necks and big bodies without collapsing under their own weight has actually puzzled researchers since their discovery. To combat this Mamenchisaurus had 4-meter-long rod-like neck ribs, bony extensions of the vertebrae that created overlapping bundles of rods on either side of the neck.
The staying mystery of Mamenchisaurus and numerous other long-necked sauropods is understanding just how they drew air down these long necks all the way to their lungs.
Prof. Paul Barrett, Merit Researcher, Natural History Museum London explains, “Like all other sauropod dinosaurs, Mamenchisaurus had a complicated breathing device that consisted of not only the lungs, however also numerous balloon-like air sacs. These were linked to the lungs and windpipe however spread throughout the interior of the animals abdominal area, neck, and chest.
” Taken in combination, these air sacs had a much higher volume than the lungs, and they even went inside the bones, hollowing them out. This additional space would have helped these massive sauropods to move the big volume of air in the lengthy windpipe that would have inhabited their remarkable necks.”
While Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum is now believed to have the longest neck of any dinosaur it was still not the most significant dinosaur. That title is held by a types in the titanosaur group and dinosaur fans will get the chance to see the colossal titanosaur Patagotitan mayorum, among the largest known animals to have ever walked our planet, this summer season at Londons Natural History Museum.
Recommendation: “Re-assessment of the Late Jurassic eusauropod Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum Russell and Zheng, 1993, and the evolution of remarkably long necks in mamenchisaurids” by Andrew J. Moore, Paul M. Barrett, Paul Upchurch, Chun-Chi Liao, Yong Ye, Baoqiao Hao and Xing Xu, 15 March 2023, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.DOI: 10.1080/ 14772019.2023.2171818.
The new paper Re-assessment of the Late Jurassic eusauropod Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum Russell and Zheng, 1993, and the development of extremely long necks in mamenchisaurids is released in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. The research study was moneyed by various organisations including the United States National Science Foundation, The Royal Society of London, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
At roughly 15.1 meters, its neck was more than 6 times longer than the necks of giraffes and 1.5 times the length of a double-decker bus! For sauropods, the long neck was one of the keys to accomplishing large body size. To power such a large body, sauropods had to be effective at gathering food, and thats exactly what a long neck was built for. The concern of how sauropods managed to progress such long necks and large bodies without collapsing under their own weight has puzzled researchers considering that their discovery. To fight this Mamenchisaurus had 4-meter-long rod-like neck ribs, bony extensions of the vertebrae that developed overlapping bundles of rods on either side of the neck.