Washington, Aug 12 (ANI): Scientists have determined that a unique specimen now displayed at the Natural History Museum's Dinosaur Hall is the fossil of an embryonic marine reptile contained within the fossil of its mother.
The 78-million-year-old, 15.4-foot-long adult specimen is a Polycotylus latippinus, one of the giant, carnivorous, four-flippered reptiles known as plesiosaurs that lived during the Mesozoic Era.
The embryonic skeleton contained within shows much of the developing body, including ribs, 20 vertebrae, shoulders, hips, and paddle bones.
The research by Dr. F. Robin O'Keefe of Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. and Dr. Luis Chiappe, Director of the NHM's Dinosaur Institute, establishes that these dual fossils are the first evidence that plesiosaurs gave birth to live young, rather than hatching their offspring from eggs on land.
Although live birth (or viviparity) has been documented in several other groups of Mesozoic aquatic reptiles, no previous evidence of it has been found in the important order of plesiosaurs.
Drs. O'Keefe and Chiappe have also determined that plesiosaurs were unique among aquatic reptiles in giving birth to a single, large offspring, and that they may have lived in social groups and engaged in parental care.
"Scientists have long known that the bodies of plesiosaurs were not well suited to climbing onto land and laying eggs in a nest," Dr. O'Keefe stated.
"So the lack of evidence of live birth in plesiosaurs has been puzzling. This fossil documents live birth in plesiosaurs for the first time, and so finally resolves this mystery.
"Also, the embryo is very large in comparison to the mother, much larger than one would expect in comparison with other reptiles. Many of the animals alive today that give birth to large, single young are social and have maternal care.
"We speculate that plesiosaurs may have exhibited similar behaviours, making their social lives more similar to those of modern dolphins than other reptiles," he added. (ANI)
The findings will be published on August 12, 2011 in the authoritative magazine Science. (ANI)
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