Juveniles congregated in “schools,” while adults roamed and foraged for the herd. The dinosaurs likely worked as a community, laying their eggs in a common nesting ground. This “age segregation,” the researchers believe, is a strong sign of a complex, herd-like social structure. Meanwhile, remains of adult dinosaurs were found alone or in pairs throughout the field site. Surprisingly, the researchers observed that the fossils were grouped by age: Dinosaur eggs and hatchlings were found in one area, while skeletons of juveniles were grouped in a nearby location.
Using X-ray tomography imaging, they were able to examine the eggs’ contents without breaking them apart, and discovered preserved embryos within, which they used to confirm that the fossils were all members of Mussaurus patagonicus - a plant-eating dinosaur that lived in the early Jurassic period and is classified as a sauropodomorph, a predecessor of the massive, long-necked sauropods that later roamed the Earth. Since 2013, members of the team have excavated more than 100 dinosaur eggs (about the size of chicken eggs) and the partial skeletons of 80 juvenile and adult dinosaurs from a rich fossil bed in southern Patagonia. In a paper appearing today in Scientific Reports, researchers from MIT, Argentina, and South Africa detail their discovery of an exceptionally preserved group of early dinosaurs that shows signs of complex herd behavior as early as 193 million years ago - 40 million years earlier than other records of dinosaur herding.
And a new study shows that the prehistoric creatures lived in herds much earlier than previously thought. To borrow a line from the movie “Jurassic Park:” Dinosaurs do move in herds.
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