Dinosaurs' Earth Migration Finally Traced

Dinosaurs walked across the Pangea super continent between 230 million and 66 million years ago, and believed to have migrated to other regions of the world from Europe. Recently, comparing all the gathered data regarding their fossils, paleontologists were able to visually trace the migration of the dinosaurs during the period of their dominance on Earth.

Different dinosaur fossil connections were seen through the network theory used by the researchers. It is a series of points referred to as the objects of the investigation, which are then observed in terms of how they interact by drawing lines between them. The team, lead by a paleontologist at the Univeristy of Leeds, Dr. Alex Dunhill, opted for continents as points, and drew connecting lines if the similar types of dinosaurs were traced on two or more continents, according to Live Science.

The dinosaur families cut short on continents, even if they were entirely separate from their original locations. According to Dr. Dunhill, the findings were based on the previous researches that used different  methods, which means they were certainly pointing at the right historical movements.  The dinosaurs could have moved between islands and across continents through the build up of temporary land bridges from the changing water levels during the Cretaceous period.

To manage the mapping exercise, the research team divided the dinosaurs according to their types - the theropods like the Tyrannosaurus rex; the sauropodomorphs like the Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus; and the ornithischians like the Stegosaurus and Triceratops.

However, analyzing whether the findings indicate the actual patterns of dinosaur migrations or if the results show the limitations in the fossil record, has been difficult. According to Dr. Dunhill, the fossil record is not complete and appeared biased, and that the record of the terrestrial vertebrate fossil is irregular.

Dinosaur migration would need more data to support this move by the dinosaurs during that era, although the succeeding stages of the study are going to include the integration of dinosaur phylogeny to look at the connections between the different groups, Telegraph reported.