Living fast in the Triassic: New data on life history in Lystrosaurus (Therapsida: Dicynodontia) from northeastern Pangea.

ABSTRACT: Lystrosaurus was one of the few tetrapods to survive the Permo-Triassic mass extinction, the most profound biotic crisis in Earth's history. The wide paleolatitudinal range and high abundance of Lystrosaurus during the Early Triassic provide a unique opportunity to investigate changes in growth dynamics and longevity following the mass extinction, yet most studies have focused only on species that lived in the southern hemisphere. Here, we present the long bone histology from twenty Lystrosaurus skeletal elements spanning a range of sizes that were collected in the Jiucaiyuan Formation of northwestern China. In addition, we compare the average body size of northern and southern Pangean Triassic-aged species and conduct cranial geometric morphometric analyses of southern and northern taxa t

SUBMITTER: Kulik ZT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8570511 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature