SCIENCE & SOCIETY - #dinosaurs #Trex
Study: Dinosaurs Lost Teeth,
Grew Bird-Like Beaks
Fossil analysis suggests members of at least one dinosaur species started out with full sets of teeth, only to lose them in adulthood and develop beaks instead.
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Issue 14
28 August
Lower Secondary
At the height of the Jurassic Period, 19 dog-size
dinosaurs drowned in a mud pit in what is now
northwestern China. But 160 million years later,
these Limusaurus inextricabilis specimens—aptly
named “inextricable mud lizards”—would be
declared the only known reptiles to lose their teeth
after birth and develop bird-like beaks as they
matured. This odd phenomenon, described in a
study published in Current Biology last week
(December 22), may shed light on the mechanism of
beak evolution.
The discovery came after a team of biologists and
paleontologists re-examined the 19 specimens and
noticed marked differences in the fossilized facial
features. “At first we thought they were different
dinosaurs—one with teeth and one without,”
coauthor Wang Shuo, an evolutionary biologist at
Capital Normal University in Beijing, told CNN.
“But they were largely identical and we found solid
evidence that teeth were lost. There were empty
tooth sockets in their jaw bones.”
While the younger specimens had all of the usual
trappings of carnivorous, reptilian dinosaurs, the
adults seemed to have lost their teeth entirely,
while the most mature specimens had developed
bird-like beaks. Some of the adult specimens even
had rocks in their gullet, one of the telltale signs of
modern bird digestion.
Artist’s rendering of limusaurus.
"Who would have thought that a dinosaur would
start off with teeth and then replace them with a
beak when it became an adult?” Stephen Brusatte, a
paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh, U.K.,
who was not involved in the study, told The
Christian Science Monitor. These different diets
may have allowed adult and juvenile dinosaurs to
live together without competing for food, Brusatte
added.
While the findings may provide some information
about how beaks could theoretically evolve, the
authors stressed that further investigations are
needed. Limusaurus is part of the vast group of
theropod dinosaurs (which includes birds) but part
of a distant lineage. “This is definitely not on the
way to bird beaks,” coauthor James Clark of George
Washington University told The Christian Science
Monitor. Still, he added, “this is the first time it has
been found in the fossil record.”
A study of 19 fossilized
dinosaurs have found that one species had teeth when young, but
lost them in adulthood. The species involved was related to modern birds,
and may help unravel the origins of the beak.
Adapted from: http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/47870/title/Study-Dinosaurs-Lost-Teeth--Grew-Bird-Like-Beaks/
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