An early ancestor of the iconic, plodding, long-necked dinosaur diplodocus ran on its two back legs and used its forelimbs to grasp food 205 million years ago.
This is the conclusion of University of Bristol researchers who reconstructed the limb muscles of Thecodontosaurus, a small dinosaur that lived in the UK in the Triassic.
The findings, the team said, help explain how giant, quadrupedal sauropods like the 100-foot-long diplodocus evolved from wolf-sized species like Thecodontosaurus.
An early ancestor of the iconic, long-necked dinosaur diplodocus ran on its two back legs and used its forelimbs to grasp food 205 million years ago. Pictured: an illustration of Thecodontosaurus, showing its limb musculature
This is the conclusion of University of Bristol experts who reconstructed the limb muscles of Thecodontosaurus, a dinosaur that lived in the UK in the Triassic. Pictured: Fossils of Thecodontosaurus' left ilium (top and bottom left) and left ischium (right) bones
The findings, the team said, help explain how giant, quadrupedal sauropods like the 100-foot-long diplodocus (depicted) evolved from wolf-sized species like Thecodontosaurus
The study was undertaken by palaeobiologist Antonio Ballell and colleagues in the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences.
'The University of Bristol houses a huge collection of beautifully preserved Thecodontosaurus fossils that were discovered around Bristol,' said Mr Ballell.
'The amazing thing about these fossilised bones is that many preserve the scars and rugosities that the limb musculature left on them with its attachment.'
These features — when well enough preserved — can be used in tandem with an understanding of the musculature of closely-related, living species to infer the shape and direction of the limb muscles, the team explained.
'In the case of dinosaurs, we have to look at modern crocodilians and birds, that form a group that we call archosaurs, meaning "ruling reptiles". Dinosaurs are extinct members of this lineage,' added Mr Ballell.
'Due to evolutionary resemblance, we can compare the muscle anatomy in crocodiles and birds and study the scars that they leave on bones to identify and reconstruct the position of those muscles in dinosaurs.'
As palaeontologist and paper co-author Emily Rayfield added: 'These kinds of muscular reconstructions are fundamental to understand functional aspects of the life of extinct organisms.
'We can use this information to simulate how these animals walked and ran with computational tools.'
'The University of Bristol houses a huge collection of beautifully preserved Thecodontosaurus fossils that were discovered around Bristol,' said
