Histology and postural change during the growth of the ceratopsian dinosaur Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis

Qi Zhao (), Michael J. Benton, Corwin Sullivan, P. Martin Sander and Xing Xu ()
Additional contact information
Qi Zhao: School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol
Michael J. Benton: School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol
Corwin Sullivan: Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origin of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
P. Martin Sander: Steinmann Institute, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract A few dinosaurs are inferred to have undergone an ontogenetic shift from quadrupedal-to-bipedal posture, or vice versa, based on skeletal allometry. The basal ceratopsian Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis is considered to have been mainly bipedal as an adult. Here we infer a postural shift in this species based on a novel combination of limb measurements and histological data. The forelimb is strongly negatively allometric relative to the hindlimb, and patterns of vascular canal orientation provide evidence that growth of the hindlimb was particularly rapid during the middle part of ontogeny. Histology also makes it possible to determine the ontogenetic ages of individual specimens, showing that the forelimb-to-hindlimb ratio changed rapidly during the first or second year of life and thereafter decreased gradually. Occurrence of an ontogenetic shift from quadrupedality to bipedality was evidently widespread in dinosaurs, and may even represent the ancestral condition for the entire group.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3079 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:4:y:2013:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms3079

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3079

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().