A simulated bird gastric mill and its implications for fossil gastrolith authenticity

Wings, Oliver

doi:10.1002/mmng.200800013

Cited by 8 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Occasional finds of polished pebbles with sauropod skeletons (e.g. Janensch, 1929 b ; Bird, 1985 ; Christiansen, 1996 ) were taken as evidence for such a gastric mill, but comparative and experimental work ( Wings & Sander, 2007 ; Wings, 2007 , 2009 ) on ostriches and other herbivorous birds indicates that these pebbles are not the remains of an avian-style gastric mill, leaving it uncertain whether and how sauropods reduced particle size.…”

Section: Bauplan and Biology Of Sauropod Dinosaursmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biology of the sauropod dinosaurs: the evolution of gigantism

et al. 2010

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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...

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Section: Bauplan and Biology Of Sauropod Dinosaursmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biology of the sauropod dinosaurs: the evolution of gigantism

et al. 2010

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“…Wings (2009) realizó experimentos sobre el efecto de la permanencia en el tubo digestivo de los gastrolitos mediante un tambor de atrición que modelizaba lo ocurrido en saurópodos. Sin embargo, el experimento no tuvo en cuenta la presencia del consumo de sedimento psamítico o político, por lo que no conocemos su efecto en el pulido de los clastos psefíticos.…”

Section: 5 Inferencias Paleobiológicas Generalesunclassified

New Insights on theAristonectes parvidens(Plesiosauria, Elasmosauridae) Holotype: News on an Old Specimen

O'gorman

2016

Ameghiniana

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“…Gastroliths are any hard objects without a caloric value that are found in or have passed through the digestive tract of an animal [ 1 – 3 ]. Following the classification of Wings [ 1 ], gastroliths can be subdivided into bio-gastroliths , mineral concretions physiologically formed in the guts of decapod crustaceans prior to ecdysis [ 4 – 6 ]; patho-gastroliths , stone-like pathological growths nucleated around ingested materials (e.g. hairs or vegetal fibers by grazing mammals; [ 7 ]; i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

First evidence of marine turtle gastroliths in a fossil specimen: Paleobiological implications in comparison to modern analogues

Serafini,

Gordon,

Amalfitano

et al. 2024

PLoS ONE

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Semi-articulated remains of a large chelonioid turtle from the Turonian strata (Upper Cretaceous; ca. 93.9–89.8 Myr) near Sant’Anna d’Alfaedo (Verona province, northeastern Italy) are described for the first time. Together with the skeletal elements, the specimen also preserves pebbles inside the thoracic area which are lithologically distinct from the surrounding matrix. These allochthonous clasts are here interpreted as geo-gastroliths, in-life ingested stones that resided in the digestive tract of the animal. This interpretation marks the first reported evidence of geophagy in a fossil marine turtle. SEM-EDS analysis, together with macroscopic petrological characterization, confirm the presence of both siliceous and carbonatic pebbles. These putative geo-gastroliths have morphometries and size ranges more similar to those of gastroliths in different taxa (fossils and extant) than allochthonous “dropstone” clasts from the same deposit that were carried by floating vegetation A dense pitted pattern of superficial erosion is microscopically recognizable on the carbonatic gastroliths, consistent with surface etching due to gastric acids. The occurrence of a similar pattern was demonstrated by the experimental etching of carbonatic pebbles with synthetic gastric juice. Gut contents of modern green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) were surveyed for substrate ingestion, providing direct evidence of geophagic behavior in extant chelonioids. Comparison with modern turtle dietary habits may suggests that the pebbles were ingested as a way to supplement calcium after or in preparation for egg deposition, implying that the studied specimen was possibly a gravid female.

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A simulated bird gastric mill and its implications for fossil gastrolith authenticity

Cited by 8 publications

References 18 publications

Biology of the sauropod dinosaurs: the evolution of gigantism

Biology of the sauropod dinosaurs: the evolution of gigantism

New Insights on theAristonectes parvidens(Plesiosauria, Elasmosauridae) Holotype: News on an Old Specimen

First evidence of marine turtle gastroliths in a fossil specimen: Paleobiological implications in comparison to modern analogues

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