Comparative digestive physiology of archosaurs with notes on bird origins

Abstract

It is widely accepted that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs, and few paleontologists disagree preferring a more ancient split of the avian and dinosaur lineages. The difference in digestive physiology between members of the theropod and crocodile lineages, documented by fossil feces and gut contents, offers an opportunity to test these phylogenetic hypotheses. Birds share with crocodiles the functional gizzard that contains swallowed stones and where gastric pellets are formed before regurgitation, as well as a mechanism that prevents the passage of indigestible residues into the intestine. Both these adaptations are missing in unquestionable theropod groups (compsognathids, tyrannosaurids, allosaurids, coelophysids). The theropod ancestry of birds implies reappearance and strong development of a specific stomach functionality that either had been already lost in the theropod dinosaurs or was never present in their lineage. Coprolites of early archosaurs contain undigested bones, which suggests a short digestion time and higher metabolic rates than in extant crocodiles. Early archosaurs were similar to birds, but not to dinosaurs, in all these aspects of physiology.