Subaqueous foraging among carnivorous dinosaurs

Matteo Fabbri (), Guillermo Navalón (), Roger B. J. Benson (), Diego Pol, Jingmai O’Connor, Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar, Gregory M. Erickson, Mark A. Norell, Andrew Orkney, Matthew C. Lamanna, Samir Zouhri, Justine Becker, Amanda Emke, Cristiano Dal Sasso, Gabriele Bindellini, Simone Maganuco, Marco Auditore and Nizar Ibrahim
Additional contact information
Matteo Fabbri: Field Museum of Natural History
Guillermo Navalón: University of Cambridge
Roger B. J. Benson: University of Oxford
Diego Pol: CONICET, Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio
Jingmai O’Connor: Field Museum of Natural History
Bhart-Anjan S. Bhullar: Yale University
Gregory M. Erickson: Florida State University
Mark A. Norell: American Museum of Natural History
Andrew Orkney: University of Oxford
Matthew C. Lamanna: Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Samir Zouhri: Hassan II University of Casablanca
Justine Becker: University of Detroit Mercy
Amanda Emke: University of Detroit Mercy
Cristiano Dal Sasso: Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano
Gabriele Bindellini: Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano
Simone Maganuco: Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano
Marco Auditore: Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano
Nizar Ibrahim: University of Portsmouth

Nature, 2022, vol. 603, issue 7903, 852-857

Abstract: Abstract Secondary aquatic adaptations evolved independently more than 30 times from terrestrial vertebrate ancestors1,2. For decades, non-avian dinosaurs were believed to be an exception to this pattern. Only a few species have been hypothesized to be partly or predominantly aquatic3–11. However, these hypotheses remain controversial12,13, largely owing to the difficulty of identifying unambiguous anatomical adaptations for aquatic habits in extinct animals. Here we demonstrate that the relationship between bone density and aquatic ecologies across extant amniotes provides a reliable inference of aquatic habits in extinct species. We use this approach to evaluate the distribution of aquatic adaptations among non-avian dinosaurs. We find strong support for aquatic habits in spinosaurids, associated with a marked increase in bone density, which precedes the evolution of more conspicuous anatomical modifications, a pattern also observed in other aquatic reptiles and mammals14–16. Spinosaurids are revealed to be aquatic specialists with surprising ecological disparity, including subaqueous foraging behaviour in Spinosaurus and Baryonyx, and non-diving habits in Suchomimus. Adaptation to aquatic environments appeared in spinosaurids during the Early Cretaceous, following their divergence from other tetanuran theropods during the Early Jurassic17.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04528-0

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