James Brown/University of Portsmouth/Natural History Museum
Just because dinosaurs roamed our planet over a hundred million years ago, doesn’t mean they can’t surprise us still in the present.
And this was very much the case when a retired GP and current palaeontology PhD student Dr Jeremy Lockwood examined iguanodontian fossils held by the Dinosaur Isle museum, Isle of Wight.
The iguanodontian was thought to belong to a well-known species, and previously studied specimens had once roamed the British land, but when Lockwood took a closer look, he noticed something quite unusual.
Unlike other iguanodontian fossils, this particular individual had an unusually tall and exaggerated sail running along its back and tail.
Natural History Museum/University of Portsmouth
This was a striking development, as Dr Lockwood explained in a statement:
“While the skeleton wasn’t as complete as some of the others that have been found, no one had really taken a close look at these bones before. It was thought to be just another specimen of one of the existing species, but this one had particularly long neural spines, which was very unusual.”
With these adaptations in mind, it became clear that this individual was from a whole other species of iguanodontian entirely, with Dr Lockwood having the honor of naming the new species, as the Natural History Museum statement continued:
“Jeremy has named the new dinosaur Istiorachis macarthurae after a famous Isle of Wight resident. The name Istiorachis means ‘sail spine’, while macaruthurae honours Dame Ellen MacArthur, the English sailor who in 2005 set a world record for the fastest solo non-stop voyage around the world on her first attempt and who comes from the Isle of Wight.”
The new species Istiorachis macarthurae was officially described, with Lockwood’s findings published in the journal Papers in Palaeontology.
Natural History Museum/University of Portsmouth
Why this dramatic adaptation though?
Well, Dr Lockwood believes that the sail-like structure added to the allure of this particular 125 million year old individual, with suggestions that it was an adaptation that helped this iguanodontian to mate more successfully, as he continued in the statement:
“Evolution sometimes seems to favour the extravagant over the practical. While the exact purpose of such features has long been debated – with theories ranging from body heat regulation to fat storage – researchers believe that the most likely explanation in this case is visual signalling, possibly as part of a sexual display and this usually is because of sexual selection.”
There is no denying that this dinosaur would have looked quite striking!
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Categories: SCI/TECH
Tags: · adaptation, dinosaur fossils, dinosaurs, evolution, fossils, iguanodontian, isle of wight, palaeontology, sail, science, single topic, top