Giant Mother Lizard Reveals How Dinosaurs Lived and Grew Millions of Years Ago

First Posted: Oct 05, 2015 06:49 AM EDT

Scientists have taken a closer look at the "good mother lizard," Maiasaura peelesorum, from Montana to get a better understanding of its life history. Now, scientists have created a model to which all other dinosaurs can be compared.

"This is one of the most important pieces of paleontology involving MSU in the past 20 years," said Jack Horner, one of the researchers, in a news release. "This is a dramatic step forward from studying fossilized creatures as single individuals to understanding their life cycle. We are moving away from the novelty of a single instance to looking at a population of dinosaurs in the same way we look at populations of animals today."

In this latest study, the researchers examined the fossil bone microstructure of about 50 Maiasaura shin bones. This bone history revealed aspects of growth that can't normally be obtained by looking at the shape of the bone. The researchers retrieved information about growth rate, metabolism, age at death, sexual maturity, skeletal maturity, and how long a species took to reach adult size.

"Histology is the key to understanding the growth dynamics of extinct animals," said Holly Woodward, one of the researchers. "You can only learn so much from a bone by looking at its shape. But the entire growth history of the animal is recorded within the bone. No other histological study of a single dinosaur species approaches our sample size."

The researchers found that the dinosaurs had bird-level growth rates throughout most of their lives. In addition, the bone tissue resembled modern day warm-blooded mammals such as elk. The researchers also found that a dinosaur varied in size, so you can't just measure the length of a dinosaur bone and assume it represents an animal of a certain age.

The findings are published in the journal Paleobiology.

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TagsDinosaurs, Dinosaur, Life, Bone, Fossil, fossils, Bones