These long-lived dinosaurs could evolve The length of the three school buses and was so heavy that the ground must have shaken as they walked.
This family of dinosaurs, however, was not always so large. In the first 50 million years of their evolutionary history, sur ropods were more diverse. While some were quite large, at a length of about 10 meters, the family also included more lightly tied animals that were not larger than a goat. What’s more, some sauropods walked on two legs while others used four.
Fossils are found in Patagonia, South America This has shed new light on the mystery. A team of paleontologists has unearthed one of the oldest known large soropods and plant fossils in the surrounding rock layers. Dinosaur fossils provide evidence of the weather and the ecosystem in which the newly identified species of dinosaurs lived. Scientists named it after Bagulia alba, Baguel Canyon, where dinosaur fossils were found, and alba, meaning “paro” in Spanish in the early ages. Is.
New research suggests that the huge size of the solarpod was a response to climate migration during the early Jurassic period 180 million years ago. This evolutionary change led to the eruption of large volcanoes in the Southern Hemisphere, resulting in a change in vegetation that formed the plant-eating solarpod diet.
“The lava flow there stretched to a million square miles. It’s much larger than anything we’ve seen in human time. Large amounts of CO2 and methane were released into the atmosphere and the weather there has been well studied. Globally,” said Diego Paul, of Argentina. The chief researcher at the Museum Pale f Paleontology Aguido Fuglio told CNN via email.
“But we did not know the impact of this global crisis on terrestrial ecosystems. We lacked knowledge because the silt with dinosaurs and plants of that particular age is very unusual.”
The change in diet meant that many sapropod groups disappeared and only one lineage survived – the large sapropods known as europods. The Begulia alba would probably have been 10 tons – around the size of two African elephants – but later Soropods were up to 40 meters long and weighed 70 tons.
Changes in vegetation
In particular, it was a change in vegetation in the harsh environment that caused most of the soropods to become extinct. The coniferous trees came to dominate the warmer, more arid climate. These trees grow lush vegetation in a humid environment prior to a volcanic eruption. Paul said the remnants of this environment show more than 6 feet of ferns with ferns.
“These were the only userpods that survived the crisis. They have long been considered bulk feeders, teeth and jaws that could cut and swallow all kinds of plants, including conifers.
“Furthermore, we found that the enamel of Bagulia’s teeth was several times thicker than that of other extinct herbivores. This allowed them to feed on the hardened leaves of conifers,” said Paul, referring to the new species of dinosaurs.
In fact, the large digestive chambers needed to cope with this type of vegetation were probably one of the reasons why these animals reached this huge size.
And a long neck? They would have enabled them to reach the conch conifers and allow them to enter various plants without moving their huge carcasses, Paul said.
“Their huge bodies needed them to eat large amounts of food to meet their energetic needs. But if you’re big and heavy and you have to move a lot to get the food you need, you can spend a lot of energy (and then” need more food Falls), ”he said.
Huge animals also generate a lot of body heat, and other studies have suggested that their long necks can deplete body heat – just like the large ears of modern elephants, Paul explained.
The research was published in the Royal Society B Journal Proceedings on Tuesday.
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