An international team of scientists used high-energy X-rays from the European Synchrotron Radiation Centre (ESRF) to show how the dinosaur Heterodontosaurus Tucki, which went extinct in South Africa 200 million years ago, breathed. The study was published in eLife on July 6, 2021.
In 2016, scientists from the Institute of Evolution at the University of The Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, came to the European Synchrotron Radiation Centre (ESRF), or brightest synchrotron radiation source, in Grenoble, France, to conduct a special study that scanned the complete skeleton of a small plant-eating dinosaur 200 million years ago. The dinosaur specimen is the most complete fossil ever found, and the species is known as the Allodontosaurus tucki. The fossil was discovered in 2009 in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, by study co-author Billy de Klerk of the Albany Museum in Makanda, South Africa.
Now the team of scientists, using scans and new algorithms developed by ESRF scientists, has virtually reconstructed the skeleton of Allodonosaurus in unprecedented detail, showing how this extinct dinosaur breathed, and this specimen represents a turning point in understanding how dinosaurs evolved. For a long time, paleontologists thought that all dinosaurs breathed like birds because they had similar respiratory anatomy. However, the study found that this was not the case with allosaurus, having paddle-shaped ribs and small, toothpick-like bones, and that its chest and abdomen were dilated for breathing.
Allosaurus was one of the oldest and earliest evolved ornithopod dinosaurs, including popular dinosaurs such as Triceratops, Stegosaurus, and Platylos. Allosaurus lived in the early Jurassic, about 200 million years ago, and survived an extinction at the end of the previous Triassic period. Understanding how such dinosaurs breathe could also help paleontologists figure out which biological features allowed certain dinosaurs to survive or cause them to go extinct.
We have long known that the skeletons of ornithischian dinosaurs are fundamentally different from those of other dinosaurs, and a surprising new fossil has helped us understand why birds are so unique and successful. The study is the result of a long-standing collaboration between South African-based paleontologists and ESRF, which has developed non-invasive techniques specifically for paleontological research. ESRFX rays combined with its high-energy beamline configuration made it possible to scan this full turkey-sized dinosaur.
This is a perfect example of the diversity of life on Earth. Animals have many ways of breathing. And what's really interesting about life on Earth is that animals all have different strategies to do the same thing, and we've just discovered a new breathing strategy.