He and Fiorillo also studied the remains of three juvenile Alamosaurus sanjuanensis at the Upper Cretaceous site Big Bend in Texas. The minimally weathered bones suggest the young sauropods died together in a single event. "Given their proximity to a lake shore, it's possible that they succumbed to drought as well," Myers said. The three sites add to a growing body of evidence that dinosaurs were gregarious animals that sometimes segregated themselves based on age. This appears particularly true for sauropods, "since the difference in body size between immature and fully-grown sauropods was vast," said Myers. "Since individuals that are the same sex, age and body size will have similar routines, herds composed of similar individuals will be more cohesive," he added. While no modern animal is a perfect analog for sauropod behavior, he said, they might have behaved somewhat similar to hoofed mammals, like elks, that form distinct herds to move "together as a unit." Modern adult elks, however, exhibit fairly extensive parental care. For sauropods, it's possible that youngsters were left to fend for themselves not long after hatching. Glenn Storrs, vice president for collections research and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Cincinnati Museum Center, has worked at the Mother's Day Quarry for a decade. He told Discovery News that this site "contains the best existing evidence that age segregation of juvenile sauropods has occurred." Related Links: |
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