Bone histology indicates insular dwarfism in a new Late jurassic sauropod dinosaur

[YNCS]

Most herbivores are difficult to housebreak, so I doubt the Europasaurus holgeri would make a good pet.

Interesting article. Thanks for posting it, Carlos.

 

[Archbob]

Nonsense, Giant bunnies are perfect pets.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I wonder why insular dwarfism didn't apply to tortises on the galapagos islands.

 

[mrtn]

I wonder why insular dwarfism didn't apply to tortises on the galapogos islands.

AFAIU it requires two things; an island and shortage of food. Supposedly the Galpagos tortoises doesn't lack food.

 

[carlosMM]

I wonder why insular dwarfism didn't apply to tortises on the galapagos islands.

well, look at two things: their generation length, population numbers and time on the island on one hand, the food supply on the other.....

also, they are large, for tortioses, but they don't even weigh a ton.

There's a nice paper by Diamond et al. on the relationship between body size and habitat size. Tortoises are way shy of the limit. Interestingly, dinosaurs bust it all through their life history albeit always to the same amount, roughly.

 

[The Last Conformist]

It looks more like a brachiosaurus instead of a diplodocus, but i thought its mammals that ar supposed to become "minaturized", when placed in a small habitat, reptiles are supposed to become supersized when placed on small isalnd, example: the galapagos tortoise and komodo dragons.

A tortoise or lizard has much smaller metabolic needs than a mammal of the same size. Sauropods likely where closer to the mammal in this respect, so it would make sense for it to behave more like the mammal than the lizard in this respect.

Also, until fairly recently Megalania, a cousin to the Komodo dragon, lived in Australia, the catch being that it was much larger than the dragon, which ought put a sizeably question mark at the notion the dragons got big due to insularity.

 

[Birdjaguar]

@mrtn and Carlos: Thanks.

 

[Sidhe]

Can I ask what "insular dwarfism" means?

It means the traits of small dinosaurs evolved on an island, in other words speciation(the evolution of a new species or two) Usually because of particular environmental necessity, maybe lack of sufficient food due to the reduced area of the ecosystem. Somit like that. The most famous example of speciation I can think of, or know in fact, is the finches on the Galapagos isles. Oh and dwarf Mammoths.

Nice article Carlos btw.

 

[Kozmos]

Nice....you could actually ride that dino.