First Evidence of a Sauropod’s Last Meal Shows How They Ate Their Food

Since the past due 19th century, sauropod dinosaurs (long-necks like Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus) had been virtually universally thought to be herbivores, or plant eaters.

However, till not too long ago, no direct proof – within the type of fossilised intestine contents – have been discovered to fortify this.

I used to be one of the crucial palaeontologists on a dinosaur dig in outback Queensland, Australia, that unearthed “Judy”: a phenomenal sauropod specimen with the fossilised stays of its ultimate meal in its stomach.

In a brand new paper revealed these days in Current Biology, we describe those intestine contents whilst additionally revealing that Judy is probably the most whole sauropod, and the primary with fossilised pores and skin, ever present in Australia.

Remarkably preserved, Judy is helping to make clear the feeding behavior of the biggest land-living animals of all time.

Plant-eating land behemoths

Sauropod dinosaurs ruled Earth’s landscapes for all the 130 million years of the Jurassic and Cretaceous classes. Along with many different species, they died out within the mass extinction match on the finish of the Cretaceous 66 million years in the past.

Ever because the first somewhat whole sauropod skeletons have been discovered within the 1870s, the speculation that they have been herbivores has infrequently been contested. Simply put, it’s arduous to envisage sauropods dining anything else instead of vegetation.

Their quite easy enamel weren’t tailored for tearing flesh or crushing bone. Their small brains and hulking tempo would have averted them from outsmarting or outpacing maximum possible prey.

And to maintain their large our bodies, sauropods would have needed to devour incessantly and frequently, necessitating an plentiful and dependable meals supply – vegetation.

Although the overall frame plan of sauropods turns out beautiful uniform – stocky, on all fours, with lengthy necks – those behemoths did range after we glance extra carefully.

Some had squared-off snouts with tiny, swiftly changed enamel confined to the entrance of the mouth. Others had rounded snouts, with a lot more tough enamel, organized in a row that prolonged farther again within the mouth. Neck duration numerous very much (with some necks as much as 15 metres lengthy), as did neck flexibility. In addition, a couple of of them had taller shoulders than hips.

Absolute measurement numerous too – some have been much less monumental than others. All of those elements would have constrained how top above floor every species may just feed and which vegetation they may succeed in.

Food within the stomach

Sauropod discoveries are turning into extra common in outback Queensland, thank you in large part to the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum in Winton.

In 2017, I helped the museum unearth a kind of 95-million-year-old sauropod, nicknamed Judy after the museum’s co-founder Judy Elliott.

We quickly realised this in finding was once peculiar. Besides being probably the most whole sauropod skeleton and pores and skin ever present in Australia, Judy’s stomach area hosted a odd rock layer. It was once about two sq. metres in house and ten centimetres thick on reasonable, chock-full of fossil vegetation.

The reality this plant-rich layer was once confined to Judy’s stomach and situated at the inside of floor of the fossil pores and skin, made us surprise – had we unearthed the stays of Judy’s ultimate meal or foods?

If so, we knew we had one thing particular on our arms: the primary sauropod intestine contents ever discovered.

Multi-level feeding

Analysis of Judy’s skeleton, which was once ready out of the encompassing rock by means of volunteers within the museum’s laboratory, enabled us to categorise her as a Diamantinasaurus matildae.

We scanned parts of Judy’s intestine contents with X-rays on the Australian Synchrotron in Melbourne and at CSIRO in Perth, and with neutrons at Australia’s Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation in Sydney.

This enabled us to digitally visualise the vegetation – that have been preserved as voids throughout the rock – with out destroying them.

We did destructively pattern some small parts of the intestine contents to determine their chemical makeup, together with the outside and surrounding rock.

This published the intestine contents have been became to stone by means of microbes in an acidic atmosphere (abdomen juices, in all probability), with minerals most probably derived from the decomposition of Judy’s personal frame tissues.

Judy’s intestine contents ascertain that sauropods ate their vegetables however slightly chewed them – their intestine vegetation did many of the digestive paintings.

Most importantly, we will be able to inform Judy ate bracts from conifers (kinfolk of contemporary monkey puzzle timber and redwoods), seed pods from extinct seed ferns, and leaves from angiosperms (flowering vegetation) simply sooner than she died.

Conifers then, as now, would had been large, implying Judy fed smartly above floor point. By distinction, flowering vegetation have been most commonly low-growing within the mid-Cretaceous.

Based on different specimens (especially enamel), scientists up to now concept Diamantinasaurus browsed vegetation relatively top off the bottom. The conifer bracts in Judy’s stomach fortify this.

However, Judy was once no longer absolutely grown when she died, and the angiosperms in her stomach suggest lower-level feeding, as smartly. It turns out most probably, then, that the diets of a few sauropods modified fairly as they grew. Nevertheless, they have been life-long vegetarians.

Judy’s pores and skin and intestine contents are actually on show on the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum in Winton. I’m no longer certain how I’d really feel about having the stays of my ultimate meal publicly exhibited for all to look posthumously, but when it helped the reason for science, I feel I’d be OK with it.

Stephen Poropat, Research Associate, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University

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