Jakarta –
Dinosaurs are thought to have dominated the planet for more than 160 million years thanks to the way they walked. They also have strong and large organs as an advantage.
By adapting to walk on two and four legs, the dinosaurs diversified and outcompeted other organisms to become the dominant land vertebrates. This lasted from the end of the Triassic (251.9 million to 201.3 million years ago) until its extinction around 66 million years ago in the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago).
In a study published Feb. 7 in the journal Royal Society Open Science, researchers describe how dinosaurs could have taken over the world.
Because dinosaurs walked on their hind legs and later on four legs, dinosaurs had a distinct advantage during periods of massive environmental change.
Advantages of Moving Fast
Dinosaurs were part of a group known as Avemetatarsalia that evolved alongside a related group of reptiles, Pseudosuchia, which includes the ancestors of modern crocodiles. These two groups emerged during the Triassic, after the Permian mass extinction 252 million years ago.
The researchers used fossil foot bones from 208 species of avemetatarsalians, pseudosuchians, and their close relatives to determine their changes over time.
When they first appeared, pseudosuchians were a more diverse group. Some pseudosuchians walk on their hind legs, but most still have the habit of crawling.
Dinosaurs originally had two legs and could run, not just walk slowly like their ancestors. The ability to move quickly increased their ability to evade predators and capture prey, giving them an advantage during the dry climate of the Triassic.
“There was huge pressure on food availability. Somehow, dinosaurs, which had been few in number for 20 million years, started to thrive and pseudosuchians didn’t,” said lead author Amy Shipley, a paleobiology master’s student at the University of Bristol in a campus statement, quoted from Live Science .
“It is likely that ancient dinosaurs were good at water conservation, just as many modern reptiles and birds are today. However, our evidence suggests their greater adaptability in walking and running played an important role,” he continued.
At the end of the Triassic, another mass extinction wiped out most of the pseudosuchians, except for the four-legged crocodylomorphs.
Some dinosaurs retained their upright, bipedal posture while others returned to crawling. This allows them to diversify and fill a variety of ecological niches.
“After the mass extinction at the end of the Triassic, we got very large dinosaurs, more than ten meters long, some of them had body armor, many had four legs, but many were still two-legged like their ancestors,” said one of the authors study, Suresh Singh in his statement.
“The diversity of their postures and gaits makes them highly adaptable and this ensures their success on Earth over the long term,” he added.
Although dinosaurs developed other traits that helped them thrive, including the ability to regulate temperature with feathers and more efficient breathing mechanisms. The researchers concluded that their diverse movement strategies gave them an important advantage.
Watch the video “About Megalosaurus, the First Dinosaur Named 200 Years Ago”
(nah/faz)
2024-02-17 04:00:33
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