Reconstructing how dinosaurs live , develop and reproduced is a thought-provoking chore . Often metal money are map in the dodo track record by just a few individuals , so drawing any termination for a species as a whole is wrought with trouble and inaccuracies . But tenner of research and fossil discoveries from a huge bonebed in Montana hasallowed scientiststo produce the most detailed life sentence history of any dinosaur yet .
Known asMaiasaura peeblesorum , or “ good female parent reptile , ” the animal lived in Montana around 76 million age ago in large herds that nested in colony and cared extensively for their untried , giving them their scientific name . Despite the dinosaur ’ large size , the nests in these colonies werepacked tightlytogether , resembling those of advanced sea birds . It’seven thoughtthat adults covered their nests with rotting vegetation to incubate the eggs . It is in part due to these magnanimous nesting sites that researcher have been able to get their script on a large excerption ofMaiasaurabones that cross many years group , from infants to adult .
“ This is a striking gradation forward from study fossilize creatures as single individual to understanding their lifetime cycle , ” said Jack Horner in astatement . Horner is the conservator of the Museum of the Rockies atMontana State University , where many of theMaiasaurafossils are held . “ We are moving away from the novelty of a individual instance to look at a universe of dinosaurs in the same way we look at population of animals today . ”
The researchers looked at the fossil off-white microstructure , or histology , from 50Maiasaurashin bones . These demonstrated aspects of the animals ' growth that ca n’t be deduced by looking just a the embodiment of the bones alone . Ultimately , they were able-bodied to answer questions about the animal ' growth rate , metabolic process , sexual maturity , and how long they took to reach adult size .
They consider that the dinosaur reached intimate adulthood at about the age of three , and were fully sized – thought to be around 2,300 kilograms ( 5,000 pounds ) – by the long time of eight . While deathrate for the very youthful was very high , a depressing 90 % for bambino , if they could outlive through their second year the dinosaur could gestate a six year period of peak performance where fatality rate was just 13 % on average . By the clock time the dinosaur reach old age , eight years and older , their mortality pace increase again to around 44 % .
“ By analyze the clues in the off-white histology , and looking at patterns in the last collection , we found multiple pieces of evidence all support the same timing of sexual and skeletal maturity,”explainedElizabeth Freedman Fowler , who coauthored the composition , which is published in the journalPaleobiology .
This survey kicks off theMaiasauraLife History Project , which aims to add as much information as potential to how the dinosaur lived , and create a histological “ map ” to see if unlike bones farm at unlike rate . They trust that the information present in this subject field could be used as a model against which other dinosaur can be compared .
Image in text : Reconstruction of an adult Maiasaura caring for its young . Credit : Dudo ~ commonswiki / Wikimedia Commons
