From the end of 19th century Sauropod Dinosaurs (long necks like Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus) They were almost universally considered herbivodes or herbal eaters.
However, until recently, there is no direct evidence – in the form of fossilized intestinal content – it supported it.
I was one of the paleontologists on diving dinosaurs in Outback Queensland, AustraliaThis discovered “Judy”: an exceptional Sauropod pattern with a fossilized remnants of your last meal in the abdomen.
In the new paper published in current biology, we describe these bowel content, and at the same time, we discover that Judy is the most complete sauropod, and the first with a fossilized skin, and ever found in Australia.
Extremely preserved, Judy helps to illuminate feeding habits to the biggest animal animals of all time.
Land for eating Plants Behemoths
Sauropod dinosaurs dominated Earth’s landscapes for a total of 130 million years Jurska and chalk periods. With many other species, they died in a mass event at the end of the end of the chalk 66 million years ago.
From the first reasonable complete complete skeleton Sauropod were found in the 1870s, the hypotheses they were rarely disputed. Simply put, it is difficult to predict that Sauropods eat anything but plants.
Their relatively simple teeth were not adapted for tearing meat or crushing bones. Their little brain and Pood tempo would prevent them from outperforming or outpering most potential booties.
And for maintaining their huge bodies, Sauropod should eat regularly and often, which requires a profusive and reliable source of food – plants.
Although the General Plan of the Sauropod body seems pretty uniform – Stocky, on all four, with long necks – these behemoti differed when we look closely.
Some had square clouts with tiny, quickly replaced with teeth closed on the front of the mouth. Others are the rounded muzzle, with much more robust teeth, arranged in a row that extended further into the mouth. The length of the door varied greatly (with some necks up to 15 meters), as well as the flexibility of the door. In addition, several of them had larger shoulder than hips.
And the absolute size varies – some were less huge than others. All these factors would limit how high above the country they can feed and which plants can reach.
The food in the abdomen
Discovery Sauropod becomes more regularly in Outback Queensland, thanks to the most Australian age of the Dinosaur Museum in Winton.
In 2017, I helped the museum detect approximately 95 million-year Sauropod, I’m nickname Judy after the co-founder of the Judy Elliott museum.
We soon realized that this was an extremely extraordinary. In addition to the most complete Sauropod skeleton and leather ever found in Australia, Judy’s Belly region hosted a strange rock layer. There were about two square meters in the area, and in the average of a dozen inches thickness, chocolate full of fossil plants.
The fact that this layer is rich in herbality was imprisoned in Judy’s belly and is on the inner surface of fossil leather, forced us to be surprised – that we discovered the remains of Judy’s last meal or meal?
If so, we knew we had something special on our hands: the first content of Sauropod hose ever found.
Feeding more levels
Analysis of the Judy skeleton, which is prepared from the surrounding rocks by volunteers in the museum laboratory, enabled us to classify it as a DiamantinaSaurus Matildae.
We scanned the parts of the Judy’s hose with X-rays at the Australian Sinkrotron in Melbourne and at CSIRO in Perth, and with neutrons in the Australian Nuclear Science and the Technology Organization in Sydney.
This enabled us to digital visualization of plants – which are preserved as gaps within the rock – without destruction.
We earlier sample sample sample intestinal content to understand their chemical makeup, along with leather and surrounding rock.
This revealed that the intestinal content was turned into stone with microbams in the acidic environment (brain juices, maybe), with minerals that are probably derived from the degradation of Judy’s body bodies.
Judy’s bowel content confirms that Sauropods have eaten their greenery, but barely chewed them – their intestinal flora did most of the digestive work.
Most importantly, we can tell Judy Ate Bracts from the conifers (relatives of modern monkeys puzzle and redwood), semilous pods from extinct ferrets and leaves from angiospheric (flower plants) before she died.
The steels were then, as now, were huge, implied Judy Fed well above the ground level. Conversely, floral plants were mostly lowly growing in secondary chalk.
Based on other samples (especially teeth), scientists have previously thought Diamantinasaurus Transported plants relatively high from the country. Confiscern carriers in Judy’s belly support this.
However, Judy did not fully rise when she died, and angiosper in his belly also includes lower feeding. It seems that then, then, the diet of some Sauropod has changed a little as they grew. Still, they were life vegetarians.
Judy’s skin and hose content are now displayed in the Australian Dinosaur Museum in Winton. I’m not sure how I would feel I have the remains of my last meal that are publicly exposed to everything to see again, but if he helped the cause of science, I think I’d be fine with that.
Stephen Poropat is a scientific associate at the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin University.
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