Skip to comments.'Skin Bones' Helped Large Dinosaurs Survive for a Time, Study Finds [ osteoderms ]
Posted on 12/09/2011 4:36:01 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Bones contained entirely within the skin of some of the largest dinosaurs on Earth might have stored vital minerals to help the massive creatures survive and bear their young in tough times, according to new research by a team including a University of Guelph scientist.
Guelph biomedical scientist Matthew Vickaryous co-authored a paper published today in Nature Communications about two sauropod dinosaurs -- an adult and a juvenile -- from Madagascar.
The study suggests that these long-necked plant-eaters used hollow "skin bones" called osteoderms to store minerals needed to maintain their huge skeletons and to lay large egg clutches. Sediments around the fossils show that the dinosaurs' environment was highly seasonal and semi-arid, with periodic droughts causing massive die-offs.
"Our findings suggest that osteoderms provided an internal source of calcium and phosphorus when environmental and physiological conditions were stressful," he said. As a researcher in the Department of Biomedical Sciences in Guelph's Ontario Veterinary College, Vickaryous studies how skeletons develop, regenerate and evolve.
He worked with paleontologist Kristina Curry Rogers and geologist Raymond Rogers at Macalaster College in Minnesota, and paleontologist Michael D'Emic, now at Georgia Southern University on the study. Vickaryous helped to interpret the results of CT scans and fossilized tissue cores taken from the dinosaurs.
(Excerpt) Read more at uoguelph.ca ...
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Thanks Renfield. IACFTPWBAA. But only here and there. It's just a slight uptick in troll behavior, just enough to warrant a mention here and in the upcoming Digest.
The skinflints are always the last to starve...
Ah, but they’re first to light fires! ;’)
obviously an aquatic species endowed with built in floatation devices
Another theory is like the humps (sic) of camels this subspecies of womanosaur will be able to survive off the stored sustensnce until the next season!
“Unlike the hollow adult specimen, the juvenile specimen was solid and showed little evidence of remodeling.”
WOW! LOOK at that tall tower! I bet you can get a real view of the area from it!
I have bad news for you friend...
Actually you are on to something there. About 8 pounds that a woman gains while pregnant are there as a nursing reserve. If a woman does not nurse her baby for at least a month or two, she will have a much harder time loosing this weight. If females were not very mobile for a few days after giving birth, something the evolution of a larger head might have influenced, then having this reserve to live off of and produce milk from had a distinct survival advantage.
It does a body good.