New dinosaur adapted to life underground – great newswise

Newswise – The age of dinosaurs wasn’t just above ground. A newly discovered ancestor of Thescelosaurus There is evidence that these animals spent at least some of their time in underground burrows. The new species contributes to a more complete understanding of life both above and below ground during the mid-Cretaceous.

new dinosaur, phone (/Foat’NAH/) herzoge Lived 99 million years ago in what is now Utah. At the time, the region was a large flooded ecosystem located between the shores of a vast inland ocean to the east and active volcanoes and mountains to the west. It was a hot, wet, muddy environment with many rivers flowing through it.

Paleontologists at North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences unearthed the fossil – and other specimens of the same species – in the Musenchit Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation beginning in 2013. The preservation of these fossils, along with some distinctive features, alerted them to the possibility of burrowing.

phone It was a small-bodied, plant-eating dinosaur, about the size of a large dog, with a simple body plan. It lacks the bells and whistles that characterize its highly ornamented relatives such as horned dinosaurs, armored dinosaurs, and crested dinosaurs. But that doesn’t mean to call I’m bored.

phone Shares many physical features with animals known to dig or burrow, such as large biceps muscles, strong muscle attachment points on the hips and legs, fused bones along the pelvis – likely to help stability while digging – and hind limbs that are proportionally larger than the forelimbs But this is not the only evidence that this animal spent time underground.

“The bias in the fossil record is toward larger animals, primarily because in flooded environments like Musantuchite, small bones at the surface will often disintegrate, rot, or be cleaned away before burial and fossilization,” Haviv Avrahami, Ph.D. . They say. student at NC State and digital technician for the new Dueling Dinosaurs program at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. Avrahami is the first author of the paper describing the work.

“But to call “Often found whole, many of its bones are preserved in the original death posture, with the chest turned downwards and the forelimbs in exceptionally good condition,” says Avrahami. Had it already gone underground in a burrow, this type of protection would have been more likely.”

Lindsay Zanno, associate research professor at NC State, head of paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and corresponding author of the work, agrees.

,phone “Skeletons are far more common than small animals with fragile bones in this region,” Zaino says. “The best explanation for why we find so many of them, and why we recover them in small bundles of several individuals, is that they were living underground at least some of the time. necessarily, phone Burying himself all over this area, he did the hard work for us.

Although researchers have not yet been able to identify the underground burrows to callThe tunnels and chambers of its closest relative, OryctodromeusHave been found in , idaho and montana. These findings support this idea to call Bills are also used.

clan name phone Comes from the ancestral creation story of the Chamorro people, who are the indigenous population of Guam and the Pacific Mariana Islands. Fona and Ponton were brother-sister explorers who discovered the island and became Land and Sky. The species name honors Lisa Herzog, paleontology operations manager at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, for her invaluable contributions and dedication to the field of paleontology.

“I wanted to honor the indigenous mythology of Guam, where my Chamorro ancestors came from,” Avrahami says. “In the myth, when Phona died she became part of the land, and new life arose from her body, which, for me, is associated with fossilization, beauty, and creation. to call Possibly covered in a soft coat of colorful feathers. This species is named for Lisa Herzog, who has been an integral part of all this work and has discovered one of the most extraordinary phone Probably specimens of several individuals were preserved together in one burrow.

to call Another famous North Carolina fossil also has a distant relative: the willow, A. Thescelosaurus neglectus The specimen is currently housed in a museum and is also believed to have adaptations to a semi-fossorial – or partially underground – lifestyle, leading to research. Which has been published. In late 2023 by Zaino and former NC State postdoctoral researcher David Button.

,T. neglectus At the end of this dynasty was – to call “This is an ancestor from about 35 million years ago,” Avrahami says.

Researchers believe to call It is key to expanding our understanding of Cretaceous ecosystems.

,phone “We gain insight into a third dimension that an animal can occupy underground,” says Avrahami. “This increases the richness of the fossil record and expands the known diversity of small-bodied herbivores.” , which are poorly understood despite being incredibly integral components of Cretaceous ecosystems.”

“People have a myopic view of dinosaurs that isn’t consistent with science,” Zaino says. “We now know that dinosaur diversity ranged from small arboreal gliders and nocturnal predators to lazy grazers, and yes, even underground shelterers.”

the task is visible The Anatomical Record, Peter Makovicky of the University of Minnesota and Ryan Tucker of Stellenbosch University also contributed to the work.

-peak-

Notes to editors: A summary is as follows.

“A new semifossil theslosaurine dinosaur from the Cenomanian-age Musentuchite Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah”.

DOI, 10.1002/ar.25505

Author: Haviv Avrahami, Lindsay Zanno; North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences; Peter Makovicky, University of Minnesota; Ryan Tucker, Stellenbosch University
Published: In July 9, 2024 The Anatomical Record

abstract:
Thescelosaurines are a group of early diverging, ornithischian dinosaurs that are notable for their conservative bauplan and mosaic of primitive features. Although abundant in latest Cretaceous ecosystems of North America, their record is poor due to their absence from earlier assemblages, leaving a major gap in our understanding of their evolution, origins, and ecological roles. Here we report a new small-bodied thescelosaurine—phone herzoge General and SP. November – From the Musenchit Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah, USA. phone herzoge Represented by several individuals, it represents one of the most comprehensive skeletal assemblages of small-bodied, early-diverging ornithischians described from North America to date. Phylogenetic analysis recovers the fauna as the earliest members of Thescelosaurinae, with minimal Oryctodromeusand all three species Thescelosaurus, revealing that the clade was well established in North America as early as the Cenomanian, and diverged from continental cohabitants with their sister clade, Orodrominae. To date, orodromines and thescelosaurines have not been found together within the same North American ecosystem, suggesting different habitat preferences or competitive exclusion. Osteological observations reveal wide interspecific variation and many anatomical similarities in cranial and postcranial elements. OryctodromeusSuggesting a shared semi-fossorial lifestyle.