The herbivorous sauropod dinosaurs of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods were the largest terrestrial animals ever, surpassing the largest herbivorous mammals by an order of magnitude in body mass. Several evolutionary lineages among Sauropoda produced giants with body masses in excess of 50 metric tonnes by conservative estimates. With body mass increase driven by the selective advantages of large body size, animal lineages will increase in body size until they reach the limit determined by the interplay of bauplan, biology, and resource availability. There is no evidence, however, that resource availability and global physicochemical parameters were different enough in the Mesozoic to have led to sauropod gigantism.We review the biology of sauropod dinosaurs in detail and posit that sauropod gigantism was made possible by a specific combination of plesiomorphic characters (phylogenetic heritage) and evolutionary innovations at different levels which triggered a remarkable evolutionary cascade. Of these key innovations, the most important probably was the very long neck, the most conspicuous feature of the sauropod bauplan. Compared to other herbivores, the long neck allowed more efficient food uptake than in other large herbivores by covering a much larger feeding envelope and making food accessible that was out of the reach of other herbivores. Sauropods thus must have been able to take up more energy from their environment than other herbivores.The long neck, in turn, could only evolve because of the small head and the extensive pneumatization of the sauropod axial skeleton, lightening the neck. The small head was possible because food was ingested without mastication. Both mastication and a gastric mill would have limited food uptake rate. Scaling relationships between gastrointestinal tract size and basal metabolic rate (BMR) suggest that sauropods compensated for the lack of particle reduction with long retention times, even at high uptake rates.The extensive pneumatization of the axial skeleton resulted from the evolution of an avian-style respiratory system, presumably at the base of Saurischia. An avian-style respiratory system would also have lowered the cost of breathing, reduced specific gravity, and may have been important in removing excess body heat. Another crucial innovation inherited from basal dinosaurs was a high BMR. This is required for fueling the high growth rate necessary for a multi-tonne animal to survive to reproductive maturity.The retention of the plesiomorphic oviparous mode of reproduction appears to have been critical as well, allowing much faster population recovery than in megaherbivore mammals. Sauropods produced numerous but small offspring each season while land mammals show a negative correlation of reproductive output to body size. This permitted lower population densities in sauropods than in megaherbivore mammals but larger individuals.Our work on sauropod dinosaurs thus informs us about evolutionary limits to body size in other groups of herbivorous terrestrial tetrapo...

Sauropod dinosaurs are one of the most conspicuous groups of Mesozoic terrestrial vertebrates. They show general trends towards an overall increase in size and elongation of the neck, by means of considerable elongation of the length of individual vertebrae and a cervical vertebra count that, in some cases, increases to 19 (ref. 1). The long neck is a particular hallmark of sauropod dinosaurs and is usually regarded as a key feeding adaptation. Here we describe a new dicraeosaurid sauropod, from the latest Jurassic period of Patagonia, that has a particularly short neck. With a neck that is about 40% shorter than in other known dicraeosaurs, this taxon demonstrates a trend opposite to that seen in most sauropods and indicates that the ecology of dicraeosaurids might have differed considerably from that of other sauropods. The new taxon indicates that there was a rapid radiation and dispersal of dicraeosaurids in the Late Jurassic of the Southern Hemisphere, after the separation of Gondwana from the northern continents by the late Middle Jurassic.

An isolated maxilla of the theropod dinosaur Allosaurus from the Late Jurassic (the Kimmeridgian, 153 million years ago) of Portugal is the first cranial remain of a non-coelurosaurian theropod hatchling reported so far, and sheds new light on the early cranial development of non-avian theropods. Allosaurus hatchlings seem to have been one-seventh or less of the adult length and are thus comparable in relative size to hatchlings of large extant crocodile species, but are unlike the relatively larger hatchlings in coelurosaurs. The snout experienced considerable positive allometry and an increase in tooth count during early development. The element is especially noteworthy for the abundant and well-developed features associated with the paranasal pneumatic system. Pneumatic structures present include all those found in adult allosaurids and most are even more developed than in adult skulls. Together with evidence on the ontogeny of the tympanic pneumatic system in allosaurids, these findings demonstrate that cranial pneumaticity developed early in theropod ontogeny. The strong development of pneumatic features in early ontogenetic stages of non-avian theropods supports the hypothesis that pneumatization of cranial bones was opportunistic and indicates that heterochrony played an important role in the evolution of craniofacial pneumaticity in this group.

The muscles of the infrapubic abdominal wall of crocodilians play an important role in their ventilatory mechanism. Yet the anatomy and homology of these muscles is poorly understood. To gain new insights into the anatomy of the crocodilian infrapubic abdominal wall, we dissected a specimen of Crocodylus niloticus. Origin and insertion of the muscles, as well as their arrangement relative to each other was examined in great detail. The findings were compared with those of other crocodilian taxa to detect potential variability of the muscles of interest. The homology of the muscles was studied by comparing the muscles of the crocodilian infrapubic abdominal wall with those of other diapsids. In Crocodylus niloticus, the infrapubic abdominal wall consists of four muscles: Musculus truncocaudalis, M. ischiotruncus, and Mm. rectus abdominis externus and internus. The arrangement of the muscles of the infrapubic abdominal wall of Crocodylus niloticus is consistent with that found in most other crocodilian taxa. In some crocodilian taxa, an additional muscle, M. ischiopubis, is found. In the remaining diapsids, only M. rectus abdominis is present. The crocodilian M. truncocaudalis, M. ischiotruncus and, if present, M. ischiopubis appear to be derivates of M. rectus abdominis; the development of those might be related to the evolution of the unique crocodilian ventilatory mechanism.

Soft tissues other than muscles are supposed to be of mechanical importance, yet they are rarely integrated into finite element models. Here, we investigate the functional role of the ischiopubic membrane for the loading of the pubis of the domestic fowl using 2D finite element analysis. For this purpose, a specimen of the domestic fowl was dissected and soft tissues attaching to the pubis were studied in great detail. Muscles were removed and measurements taken. For the 2D finite element model, the outline was taken from the dissected specimen. Two 2D finite element models were generated: one without and one with ischiopubic membrane. The same muscular loading based on own measurements and electromyographic data was applied to both models. The model without ischiopubic membrane shows anteroventral bending deformation of the scapus pubis, resulting in high compressive and tensile principal stresses at the level of ultimate bone stress values. The model with ischiopubic membrane shows low compressive principal stresses in the pubis consistent with the levels of steady state remodelling of bone. Based on these results, the ischiopubic membrane of the domestic fowl potentially establishes a physiological loading of the pubis and therefore might be of great mechanical significance for the loading of the bone.