Ontogenetic changes in the body plan of the sauropodomorph dinosaur Mussaurus patagonicus reveal shifts of locomotor stance during growth.

ABSTRACT: Ontogenetic information is crucial to understand life histories and represents a true challenge in dinosaurs due to the scarcity of growth series available. Mussaurus patagonicus was a sauropodomorph dinosaur close to the origin of Sauropoda known from hatchling, juvenile and mature specimens, providing a sufficiently complete ontogenetic series to reconstruct general patterns of ontogeny. Here, in order to quantify how body shape and its relationship with locomotor stance (quadruped/biped) changed in ontogeny, hatchling, juvenile (~1 year old) and adult (8+ years old) individuals were studied using digital models. Our results show that Mussaurus rapidly grew from about 60 g at hatching to ~7 kg at one year old, reaching >1000 kg at adulthood. During this time, the body's centre of mass mo

SUBMITTER: Otero A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6527699 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature