‘Unusual’ dino roamed Spain
125m yrs ago
WASHINGTON, Dec 17, (Agencies): Along a lush river delta in what is now northeastern Spain, a herd of dinosaurs munched on ferns and conifers similar to modern-day cypresses 125 million years ago.
These creatures stood out from the others in this Cretaceous Period landscape by virtue of the unusual sail-like structure on their backs, and experts today can only hypothesize about its function.
Scientists announced on Wednesday the discovery near the town of Morella in Spain’s Castelln Province of the fossil remains of a medium-sized dinosaur they named Morelladon, a four-legged herbivore that measured 6 metres (20 feet) long.
Protruding from its back was a series of bony spines that formed the sail-like structure that stood about 2 feet (60 cm) tall.
Escaso
Exchange
“The sail could help in heat exchange -- thermoregulation -- focused on releasing excess body heat into the environment, like the ears of the modern-day elephants, or as a storage place for fat to be used during periods of low food supply,” said paleontologist Fernando Escaso of the National University of Distance Education’s Evolutionary Biology Group in Spain.
The structure also could have served a display role in attracting mates, Escaso added.
Escaso noted that sail-like structures appeared periodically in the evolutionary history of vertebrates, often in animal groups not closely related to one another.
Another plant-eating dinosaur called Ouranosaurus with similarities to Morelladon lived about the same time in Africa. The biggest sail-backed creature was Spinosaurus, which lived a semi-aquatic lifestyle 95 million years ago in Africa. At 50 feet long (15 metres) and 7 tons, it was the biggest dinosaur predator on record, larger even than Tyrannosaurus rex.
Rise
Millions of years before the rise of the dinosaurs, there were other sail-backed creatures including the carnivorous reptile Arizonasaurus, the amphibian Platyhystrix and the distant mammal relatives Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus.
Morelladon is known from a partial skeleton including the spines, other vertebrae, pelvic bones, a thigh bone and teeth.
Northeastern Spain during Morelladon’s time alternated between wet and dry periods, with strong temperature variations ranging from 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 Celsius) to about 104 F (40 C).
Escaso said the main predator in the area was Baryonyx, a relative of Spinosaurus, and there were other plant-eating dinosaurs around as well as crocodilians and the flying reptiles called pterosaurs.
The research was published in the journal PLOS ONE.
A towering, 12-metre (40-foot) long Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton with a terrifying jaw goes on display in Berlin’s Natural History Museum from Thursday.
Hoping that dino frenzy will drive a visitor boom, the museum Wednesday invited media to a face-to-face encounter with the 66-million-year-old beast called “Tristan”.
The prehistoric predator is considered one of the most complete skeletons among the 50-odd sets of T-rex remains that have been unearthed worldwide, many in the hands of private collectors and out of public view.
Tristan has come to the German capital for an at least three year long stint courtesy of Danish businessman and large-fossil collector Niels Nielsen, who said he named it after his son.
“Dinosaurs attract people to museums” and such exhibits “encourage children to take an interest in research,” said Nielsen during the presentation of Tristan.
Local media celebrated the eyecatching loan, with one newspaper running a picture of the ancient reptile on its front page with the headline “Ich bin ein Berliner”, the famous words of former US president John F. Kennedy.
Education and Research Minister Johanna Wanka hailed the dino as a “spectacular find”, which would find a good temporary home in the museum known for its “unique collection and excellent research”.
The four-metre-tall dinosaur, whose scientific name means “tyrant lizard”, was unearthed from 2010-12 in the US state of Montana.
Berlin museum staff painstakingly re-assembled the matt-black fossilised skeleton from 300 separate parts, 170 of which are original, the rest reproductions.