Some the oldest dinosaurs didn't have hollow bones, suggesting that skeletal air sacs evolved independently in three lineages: long-necked sauropodomorphs, meat-eating theropods and pterosaurs.
Air sacs sandwiched inside the bones of the largest dinosaurs and pterosaurs to roam the Earth were so advantageous that these pockets might have evolved independently at least three times in different lineages, a new study finds.
"Less dense bones containing more air gave the dinosaurs and pterosaurs more oxygen circulating in their blood, as well as more agility to hunt, flee and fight, or even to fly," study first author Tito Aureliano , a researcher at the Institute of Geosciences at the University of Campinas in Brazil, said in a statement ."They not only used less energy but also kept their bodies cool more efficiently.
The researchers made detailed micro-CT scans of the bones — unearthed between 2011 and 2019 in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state — and detected small spaces in the vertebrae that could have housed blood vessels and marrow, but not air sacs.
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