The newly discovered 307-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus Heberti skull has created a buzz in the scientific community, as researchers say it may belong to the oldest known herbivores. Yes, vegetarian animals.
An artist’s reconstruction of Tyrannosaurus Heberti, a football-sized herbivore with a skull full of specialized teeth. (via REUTERS)A study about the discovery was published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. Scientists found the skull inside a fossilized tree pile in Nova Scotia, Canada.
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Why is this an important finding?For a long time, scientists thought that when animals first moved from water to land, they were all meat eaters. They believed that it took a long time for animals to figure out how to eat plants. This 307-million-year-old fossil proves that animals started thinking they were “green” millions of years ago.
“This is very important because it means that the essential components of terrestrial ecosystems as we recognize them today – herbivore-dominated – have been around and maintained since the Carboniferous period,” said paleontologist Arjan Mann of the Field Museum in Chicago, co-lead author of the study.
“Tyrannoroter is the oldest and most complete vertebrate land herbivore showing adaptations to process high-fiber plant material,” Mann adds.
What did Tyrannoroter heberti look like?”The skull is very hard,” says Hilary Maddin, a paleontologist at Carleton University in Ottawa and the study’s senior author.
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“Characteristics that indicate herbivory include its downward-pointing snout, optimally angled for dropping down. the plantslarge chambers to house strong muscles for processing plants, and most importantly, it has a mouth full of opposing tooth fields—one on the palate (roof of the mouth) that occludes (fits together) with the lower jaw,” Maddin said. “These dental batteries are seen in other herbivores.”
What does the name mean?Tyrannoroter means “tyrannical digger”. This reflects the relatively large size of the animal for its time. Its species name is Heberty in honor of research associate Brian Hebert. The researcher found the skull.
“This discovery shows that vertebrates radiated into modern-like niches, including herbivores, much faster than we thought,” Maddin said. Researchers believe that the animal may have eaten insects before reverting to plants as a staple food.
“This paper furthers the idea that insects were probably a preadaptation for herbivory, and that by primarily eating herbivorous insects, the tetrapod secondarily acquired the intestinal flora needed to process plant material,” Mann said of the football-sized animal.
3D scanning and skull printingThe researchers used 3D scanning and printing to study the fossil in detail.
“It is a means of digital preparation that allows us to visualize the skull and create 3D prints for our museum collection, for outreach and to transport the actual fossil around the world without risking it,” explained Mann.
(with input from Reuters)