Laquintasaura: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia


Article Images

Content deleted Content added

Line 105:

==Palaeobiology==

The bone [[histology]] of ''Laquintasaura'' was studied by BarrettPaul Barret and colleagues in 2014, as this could potentially inform on its physiology in life. Six cross-sections of bone were taken from five different specimens, consisting of material from a {{dinogloss|scapula}}, {{dinogloss|tibia}}, a {{dinogloss|femur}}, a {{dinogloss|rib}}, and a [[long bone]] of uncertain affinity. Each of these bones were analyzed for indications of age at death; most of the material was found to belong to subadult individual who had not reached skeletal maturity. Based on the presence of only two [[age determination in dinosaurs|annuli]], growth indicating rings, it was determined that the tibia likely belong to a juvenile around three years old. Contrastingly, the presence of at least nine tightly spaced lines of arrested growth and extensive bone remodelling in the scapula indicated it belonged to a mature adult, likely around ten to twelve years of age. It was noted that all of the specimens lack fibrolamellar bone tissue, associated with high growth rates in ornithischians such as ''[[Lesothosaurus]]'', [[ornithopod]]s, and [[marginocephalia]]ns. This is similar to small thyreophorans like ''Scutellosaurus'', and was suggested to indicate a possible secondary reversal to slower growth relative to ancestral taxa. However, due to the lack of data on ornithischian histology as a whole, as well as the limited sample size available to confirm the lack of that tissue organization in ''Laquintasaura'', these conclusions remain uncertain.<ref name=barrett2014/>

==Palaeoecology==