The gigantic and slow sauropod dinosaurs like Diplodocus had small two-legged ancestors – and one, Thecodontosaurus, was quick and nimble
An early ancestor of large, long-necked, four-legged dinosaurs like Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus was a quick, nimble biped that probably used its forelimbs to grasp its food, which included leaves, branches – and meat., a 30-centimetre-high dinosaur that lived more than 200 million years ago during the late Triassic, was a ‘sauropodomorph’ – which means it belonged to the same group as the gigantic herbivorous sauropods that lived later, in the Jurassic and Cretaceous.
By contrast, the giant Jurassic sauropodomorphs were “megaherbivores”, which means they needed four pillar-like legs to help hold their “huge digestive tracts” necessary for digesting all the plant matter they were consuming, Ballell says., a “deep and scarred” groove and other marks in the elbow bone and shoulder blade suggests they had great elbow flexibility and extension.
“They were probably using their hands – which were very well-developed with a claw in the [thumb] – to cut branches and help them procure food,” Ballell says. The findings contribute to a better understanding of how and when dinosaurs – and the sauropodomorph line in particular – evolved from walking on two legs to walking on all fours, says Ballell. “The evolution of posture in dinosaurs is quite complicated,” he says.
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