The diversity of research performed by vertebrate paleobiologists is immense, including primary descriptions of newly discovered taxa, biomechanical analyses of extant animals, large-scale macroevolutionary analyses with hundreds of taxa, and many others. This special issue of The Anatomical Record highlights the scope of the research done by paleobiologists, with an emphasis on dinosaurs and their relatives, and is structured into three broad categories of research: (1) anatomical descriptions, (2) the biology of the dinosaurs and their relatives, and (3) macroevolutionary trends. Although these topics all fall within the purview of contemporary paleobiology, many of these topics have been studied in one form or another since the beginning of dinosaur paleobiology as a field. Rather than the topics themselves, what characterizes the modern renaissance of paleobiology is the employment of newly developed quantitative techniques to analyze the relationships between taxa and their evolutionary history. While primary anatomical descriptions remain the central pillar of dinosaur paleobiology, researchers now have a suitable baseline understanding of dinosaurian anatomy and their major evolutionary relationships. Using this baseline, they are able to ask more complex questions and refine their understanding of dinosaurian evolution. The aim of this issue is to exemplify the range of topics examined within dinosaur paleobiology and to look forward to the future of paleobiology. Anat Rec, 303:645-648, 2020. © 2020 American Association for Anatomy.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ar.24384 | DOI Listing |
iScience
January 2025
Center for Vertebrate Evolutionary Biology, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China.
The Early Jurassic ornithischian dinosaurs in Laurasia are dominated by armored dinosaurs, with other early ornithischian groups being rare. Here, a new taxon, gen. et sp.
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January 2025
Abteilung Paläontologie, Bonner Institut für Organismische Biologie, Universität Bonn, 53115 Bonn, Germany.
Bone is formed by specialized cells whose activity allows bone to grow, change shape, and repair itself. Its composite structure of collagen fibrils and bioapatite nanocrystals gives bone exceptional mechanical strength. Using scanning electron microscopy, we show in fossil ichthyosaurs, 150 to 200 million years old, from the Jurassic of France and the UK, abundant and direct evidence of cellular activity on the fossilized forming, resting, and resorbing surfaces of bone trabeculae, as well as bone fibrils, Sharpey fibers, and cartilage fibers.
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December 2024
Department of Evolutionary Paleobiology, Institute of Paleobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
The knowledge of Pliensbachian (Early Jurassic, ∼192.9-184.2 Ma) plesiosaurs is notoriously insufficient.
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December 2024
Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
The early radiation of dinosaurs remains a complex and poorly understood evolutionary event. Here we use hundreds of fossils with direct evidence of feeding to compare trophic dynamics across five vertebrate assemblages that record this event in the Triassic-Jurassic succession of the Polish Basin (central Europe). Bromalites, fossil digestive products, increase in size and diversity across the interval, indicating the emergence of larger dinosaur faunas with new feeding patterns.
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October 2024
Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, United States.
Proteins have evolved to function in an aqueous environment. Collagen, which provides the bodily scaffold for animals, has a special need to retain its integrity. This need was addressed early on, as intact collagen has been detected in dinosaur fossils, even though peptide bonds have a half-life of only ∼500 years in a neutral aqueous solution.
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