Discovered belly belly dinosaur bones

The most complete skeleton of a type of dinosaur 'bulge belly', therizinosaur, was discovered in southern Utah.

This discovery brings new insights into the evolution of leaf and meat diets in ancient times, suggesting iconic predators like Velocirapotr may have evolved from ancestral species to eat. Less scary plants.

The newly discovered dinosaur, called Nothronychus graffami, lived 93 million years ago.When alive, the animal has a height of 13 feet (4 meters), with beaks and claws 9 inches (22 cm) long in the forelimbs.

With features such as stubby legs, big belly shows this giant animal looking for plant food rather than a predator.

Researcher Lindsay Zanno of the Chicago Museum said : 'It usually takes a lot of time to digest plants. Plant-eating species need to develop long gut to gain the necessary energy '.

Nothronychus graffami is feeding in a mangrove forest near the coastal strip 93 million years ago. A male Zuniceratops is passing in the back. (Photo: Victor Leshyk 2009)

Meal

The physical characteristics of this dinosaur match the therizinosaurs, a group of mysterious dinosaurs believed to belong to the maniraptoran dinosaurs with the ancestors of birds (although the two groups were split about 150 million years ago, in the Dinosaur Period).
While most theropods, such as Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor, are carnivores, therizinosaurs can very well eat plants.

To find out how both evolutionary diets and plants in theropods, Zanno and colleagues compared the anatomy of newly discovered dinosaurs and specimens from 75 other species of theropods. Through this, the team found that the plant species therizinosaurs like N. graffami are the oldest maniraptorans.

This means that plant-eating species were present very early in the evolution of maniraptorans.

Eat plants early

Some strains of maniraptoran show adaptation to eating plants, including ostrich dinosaurs and oviraptorosaurs. So the team looked for meat-eating and plant-eating traits in a maniraptorans specimen, and found that the earliest species could at least 'think' about eating plants.

Zanno told LiveScience: 'Previously, we thought that theropods eating plants like therizinosaurs were very rare. We know that they evolved from a carnivorous species somewhere in the genealogical tree, but before this study it seems that the plant-eating species are special and not ordinary cases for theropods maniraptoran. '.

In fact it is not so, Zanno and colleagues found that eating meat in particular or in combination with cannibalism can be traced back to the source of the group maniraptoran.

Zannno said: 'Many maniraptoran dinosaur lines may have eaten some plants as part of their diet, and they may have been handed down this ability by their ancestors. Therefore, predatory dinosaurs maniraptoran like Velociraptor may have evolved again to become carnivorous.

Reconstruction of the skeleton of Nothronychus graffani shows 'bulge belly', dwarf fat, long neck, and small head of this dinosaur, features commonly found in plant-eating species. (Photo: Rob Gaston 2008)

Researchers predict that the ability to eat plants may have allowed maniraptoran to move to a variety of small environments and diversify in ways that they could not only eat meat.

Zanno said: 'Something that happened very early in the evolution of maniraptorans is closely related to the incredible diversification of this animal. The ability to eat a variety of foods other than meat may be one of the keys to their success. '

The findings were reported online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences number July 15.

The giant claw in the hands of Nothronychus graffami may have helped this dinosaur cling to tree branches in search of leaves.These claws may also work to 'threaten' other predators and to seduce mates.(photo: David D. Gillette)