Height is not short, neck longer lizard foot dinosaurs why evolved a long neck

,000 lizard-footed dinosaurs, the king of early Jurassic Earth. Its family is large enough to have evolved more than 100 species. They are also the largest group of dinosaurs in Earth's history.
In the November 17 issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Biology, paleontologists recently analyzed lizard-footed dinosaur skulls unearthed in Patagonia, Argentina, as well as plant fossils from nearby rock formations to understand the climate and ecosystems of the lizard-footed dinosaurs during their life, and inferred climate change 180 million years ago.
, the most interesting is why the early Jurassic lizard-footed dinosaurs evolved long necks and giant bodies. Palaeontologists have embarked on a journey of discovery, from paleontological and paleo-climate, to the discovery of a cervical fossil around the world.the difference in foraging led to the evolution of "long necks" in lizard-footed dinosaurs, an explanation that is not very accurate. Some structural changes in teeth and skulls are more conducive to foraging.
lizard-footed dinosaurs are a group of lizard-butt-footed sub-purposes. The long-necked plant-eating lizard-footed dinosaur, once the largest animal on land, is not known to all the fossils found in the world today, as well as all the living animals. Even if they are more than 30 meters long, their heads are small, their necks and tails are long, and their stout limbs support their huge bodies.
studies have shown that they were close relatives of carnivorous dinosaurs and proliathola-footed dinosaurs, which evolved in the early Jurassic period, reached their peak in the late Jurassic period, and beed extinct during the Cretaceous period.
newly unearthed fossil of Patagonia, a lizard-footed dinosaur, which researchers named "The Dawn of Bagal." "Baguar" originated from the specific location of argentina's Bagal Valley, "Dawn" indicates that the dinosaurs lived very early. Diego Bohr, principal researcher at argentina's Ehidio Ferrulio Museum of Paleonticals, and others speculated that it was 40 meters long.
the fossils show that the Jaws of The Dawn of Bagal are strong and the teeth are seven times thicker than those of the extinct plant-eating dinosaurs. This physiological structure allows them to feed on the hard leather-like leaves of conifers.
, there were some very tall plants, such as a dozen-meter-long fossils of silicified wood, indicating that the trees were estimated to be tens of meters high during their survival. "China
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology Museum exhibition Chen collection department director Dr. He Yiming told Science and Technology Daily reporter, on the one hand, the huge lizard-footed dinosaurs eat tall tree leaves, can be peacefully shared with other low-sling plant-eating dinosaurs to avoid competition; This way of eating consumes less energy and can eat amazing amounts of food every day to maintain the energy of a large body.
other lizard-footed dinosaurs with long necks continued on Earth for 100 million years after the massive "Dawn of Bagal."
researchers believe that at the time, the southern hemisphere was living in a harsh environment, with volcanic eruptions releasing large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, ground magma flowing across the globe, and a variety of terrestrial plants extinct, while a tall conifer tree survived. The plant's needle-like leaves are rich in nutrients, but grow high, not easily accessible, and have a hard texture. This change means that a variety of lizard-footed dinosaurs be wiped out, and only one of the large, slender necks survives.
but not all researchers agree with the "evolutionary theory of greed".
Zhao Wei, an associate researcher at the Institute of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in
, China, believes that the difference in foraging factors that led to the evolution of lizard-footed dinosaurs into long necks makes sense, but this explanation is not very accurate. Long necks make it easier for dinosaurs to get more food by turning long necks while reducing body movement. Changes in vegetation during the Jurassic era led to changes in the teeth and skulls of large lizard-footed dinosaurs, which made it easier for them to forage for high-fiber plants.the most powerful weapon to defend against opponents; attracting the opposite sex, dinosaurs rely on certain features on their skulls; and long necks do help them dissipate heat to some extent.
Researchers combined fossil excavations and research on lizard-footed dinosaurs around the world to find that during the Jurassic period, most of the earth's lizard-footed dinosaurs were dominated by "long-necked monsters" whose characteristics were very similar, although different: they all had long necks, long tails, and were not afraid of any attack by carnivorous dinosaurs.
the development and change of things, there are leading factors, but often not a single factor. Thus, the hypothesis about "long necks" derives from a variety of brain holes, such as "cooling the heat", "defensive" and "attracting the opposite sex".
Zhao Believes that as lizard-footed dinosaurs grow in size, cooling is indeed a big problem that comes with it, and long necks are better able to dissipate heat. "Because volume is the third square of length, the area is the secondary side of length, as the size increases, the corresponding volume per unit area is significantly increased, compared to the huge torso, long neck can alleviate its cooling problem to a certain extent."
jurassic period, lizard-footed dinosaurs had the ability to survive and defend against enemies. They look clumsy and a little dazed, with their huge bodies, weighing tens of tons. In the face of such a behemoth, carnivorous dinosaurs were afraid to rush into crime. In front of them, the "small" carnivorous dinosaurs were completely vulnerable, as if on today's earth, the huge elephants have no natural enemies.
He Yiming told reporters that lizard-footed dinosaurs generally use large bodies and long tails to shake, to defend against attacks by opponents, their tails are the most powerful weapons.
"I think a long neck is not conducive to defending against invasion by foreign enemies." Too long neck, often make the first and last difficult to balance. Lizard-footed dinosaurs were mainly used to defend themselves against foreign enemies through a strategy of enlargement, rather than through long necks. Zhao believes so. At the same time, modern male giraffes beat each other with long necks in a race to attract the opposite sex, but this explanation is not well supported by dinosaurs. Dinosaurs in order to attract the opposite sex, often rely on some skull features, such as the crown of the crown, horned dragon's neck shield and so on.
In addition, there is also the view that in the age of dinosaurs, the earth has enough oxygen, so plants and animals can grow into large, and some people think that these large dinosaurs are too big, when they grow up from an early age to adulthood, they need to return to life in the water, relying on the buoyant activities of water, otherwise their limbs difficult to support the huge body, a shorter neck difficult to let them easily stretch forward.
180 million years ago, there are still many questions to be solved, and there are still many puzzles about the activity of the particularly large dinosaurs, and the physiological mechanisms. things have two sides, and the evolution of an extra-long neck can easily reach the leaves tens of meters high, but it can also pose a huge challenge to the physiological mechanism.
" lizard-footed dinosaurs may be the limit of land-based vivid objects. Gravity on the heart and blood transfusion burden is not the same, giraffe heart to the head has 2.5 meters, blood pressure up to 4.3 times the atmospheric pressure, equivalent to 10 floors deep underwater pressure, while lizard-footed dinosaurs have a dozen meters long neck, the strength of blood vessels can be imagined. He Yiming explained. The movie's land monsters don't exist in the real world because carbon-based biological bones and muscle systems are extreme in supporting their weight.
dinosaurs had lung structures similar to those of birds, containing airbags and breathing 2.5 times more efficiently than mammals. When exhaled, the air in the airbags enters the lungs instead of the lungs, forming a "double breathing" structure that keeps fresh air in their lungs. Early lizard feet had airbag cavities in the cervical vertebrae, and later lizard foot vertebrae also had airbag cavities.
interview, He Yiming combed through the world's long-necked lizard-footed dinosaurs that he was sure could test.
, named in 1993, was a late Jurassic lizard-footed dinosaur found near the General Temple in the eastern part of China's Jorge Basin, with a length of 37 meters. The neck alone is thought to be about 17 meters long, and evidence is that a 160 cm long cervical vertebrae are preserved, but many other fossils are missing.
found in Liudian Town, Shaoyang County, Henan Province, the late Cretaceous early Yuchuan group of giant Puyang dragon, the longest cervical vertebrae length of 124 cm, the number of preserved cervical vertebrae, about half the original length, presumably its neck length of about 13 to 16 meters.
the super dragon is a member of the Lianglong class, a single cervical vertebrae are very long but the number of girdron cervical vertebrae is small, estimated neck length of about 13.7 meters. The fossils of the Xinjiang dragon have preserved 18 cervical vertebrae, the longest of which is 123 cm long and the entire cervical vertebrae are 14.9 meters long. Although the total length of the cervical vertebrae may not be compared with that of the Zhonggamamenxi dragon, the Xinjiang dragon is the longest dinosaur with the longest complete cervical vertebrae found so far, and is also the longest land animal with a well-documented neck.
with the advance of archaeological excavations, there may be more long-necked "star dinosaurs" in the formation in the future.