There once hold out a mathematical group of ornithopoddinosaursthat were enthusiastic plant life eater , and this vegetarian lifestyle is ponder in the fossil stiff of their jaw and dental morphologies . However , scientists have n’t previously paid much attention to how this diet affected the rate of wear and replacement of their teeth .
Now , new research has revealed that as this group of dinosaurs evolved from the Jurassic through to the Cretaceous , the charge per unit at which their tooth wear off down speed up , meaning they had to replace their teeth more and more . By the end , it ’s possible that dinosaurs from this group were burn through hundreds of K of tooth in a life-time .
Within the ornithopods , you ’ll find illustrious prehistoric font likeIguanodonand the duck - billedhadrosaurs , and the group was characterized by a herbivorous diet and bipedal life-style . They first cultivate up around the mid - Jurassic but proceed on into the Cretaceous period to become one of the large and most successful groups of vegetarian dinosaurs around .
Munching your way across the planet ’s green blank takes work and , perhaps most importantly , declamatory store of replaceable teeth . In dinosaurs likeEdmontosaurus regalis(pictured above ) , this included a kind of “ dental shelling ” with lots of tooth in the line - up at once at different stages of wear and tear .
What this new enquiry tells us is that as time pass on , the phone number of teeth and charge per unit of alternate changed drastically . As subject author Dr Attila Ősi from Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary told theNatural History Museum , this see the pace of switch in some groups go from 200 days to just 50 by the end of the Cretaceous .
That striking switch - up could well reflect a change in diet . In the early 24-hour interval , the ornithopod computer menu may have included fruits and softer flora that were more nutritive - rich and so did n’t demand to be eaten in vast quantity to make a repast of it .
By the clock time we attain the later ornithopod model , they had specialized into grazing machines that would ’ve spent hours breaking down nutrient - wretched plants , sort of like today ’s kine and sheep . It therefore became a matter of endurance to have lots of replaceable tooth , as without them they would ’ve famish .
sport fact : like cows and sheep , this shift in diet finally contribute to larger trunk plan and longer gut passage times , and boy , would n’t you just lie with to see anIguanodonpat ?
The study is print inNature Communications .
