The body characteristics and living habits of Pylocosaurus

The carnivorous theropod dinosaurs also survived the catastrophe at the end of the Triassic and further developed in the Jurassic. The Synanthosaurus discovered in Zimbabwe that lived 200 million years ago was a theropod carnivorous dinosaur that dominated the earth in the early Jurassic period.

The length of Synanthosaurus is about 3 meters and its weight is less than 20 kilograms. Its appearance and characteristics are similar to the Coelophysis found in the southwestern United States. It has a slender body, hollow bones, and long legs like crane legs. It has curved, sharp fangs and three-fingered prehensile hands. The coccyx shows that its tail is also quite long.

Paranyxosaurus

Scientists have discovered two types of adult Antholosaurus skeletons in Zimbabwe. One type is about 15% larger and heavier than the other. Scientists therefore speculate that this indicates that there are such sexual differences between male and female individuals of Parasaurus.

Compared with the giant carnivorous dinosaurs of the later period, Ankylosaurus does not seem to be scary. But in the habitat of the era in which it lived, there were no other animals that could rival it. However, this overlord who always scares the other animals who live with him also has bad luck. When some kind of unpredictable disaster occurs in nature, they cannot escape either.

In 1972, paleontologist Dr. Michel was following an elephant passage toward a river in the Zambezi Valley. Suddenly, a scene appeared in front of him that made his hair stand on end. It was a pile of dinosaur bones caused by a disaster that occurred 200 million years ago. Many bones of Synechosaurus were spread out on the ground after being weathered and eroded. The bones included complete skeletons of adult individuals, as well as juveniles. The complete skeleton of an individual. The fossils were buried in fine sandstone, suggesting they died on the dunes. Dr. Michel believes they were drowned in a sudden flood.

The story of Dr. Michel's recovery happened 200 million years ago. One day at that time, when a large group of Anklesaurus, old and young, were walking across a plain with flying sand, suddenly a heavy rain fell from the sky, and a sudden flood rushed out from the mountains, and the plain quickly It became a vast country. The Anklesaurs swam in panic in the flood, trying to escape the danger, but the flood was so fierce that before the Anklesaurus could find shelter, they were all drowned in the surging water. When the flood receded a few days later, there was a layer of sand on the plain newly washed by the flood, and in the sand were buried the bodies of countless tyrannosaurs and other unfortunate creatures. For 200 million years, underground minerals have continuously seeped into the bones of these remains, turning them into fossils and preserving them, giving scientists the opportunity to study them.

These fossils are so well preserved that you can still see the groove structure formed by the original blood vessels running through the body, and you can also see the traces of the original tendons attached to the bones. Dr. Anusula Chensamy, another scientist in South Africa, studied these fossils under a microscope, and the results greatly enriched our understanding of the growth, movement, energy utilization of dinosaurs, as well as their death and fossilization.

The study of the skeletal specimens of Synechosaurus and the fossilized Longospondylus found at the same site also provides new evidence to resolve a question that has long intrigued scientists: that some dinosaurs were warm-blooded, also known as endotherms. )? It was observed that the bones of Symphonychisaurus and Longospondylus had growth rings like growth rings in tree trunks, and in animals, growth rings are often a sign of cold-blooded animals like reptiles.

What is the behavioral difference between warm-blooded animals and cold-blooded animals? Warm-blooded animals like mammals and birds have metabolic mechanisms to maintain a constant body temperature. Warm-blooded animals must have good endurance to sustain rapid exercise for long periods of time. Therefore, warm-blooded animals require a large amount of food to meet such large energy consumption needs. Cold-blooded animals control their body temperature through specific activities such as changing their position in the sun and in the shade. The energy requirements of a cold-blooded dinosaur are quite low.

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