小柯机器人

美国菲尔德自然历史博物馆Matteo Fabbri、英国剑桥大学Guillermo Navalón和牛津大学Roger B. J. Benson研究团队合作取得一项新突破。他们揭示了食肉恐龙水下觅食的进化轨迹。2022年3月23日，国际学术期刊《自然》发表了这一成果。

研究人员通过现存羊膜的骨密度和水生生态之间的关系推断了灭绝物种水生习性的产生时间。研究人员使用这种方法评估了非鸟类恐龙的水生适应性分布。研究发现棘龙类的水生习性得到了强有力的加强，这与骨密度的显著增加有关，这出现在解剖学改变进化之前，在其他水生爬行动物和哺乳动物中也观察到了这种模式。棘龙科被认为是具有明显生态差异的水生专家，包括棘龙和重爪龙的水下觅食行为，以及象鼻龙的非潜水习惯。早白垩世棘龙类出现了对水生环境的适应，在侏罗纪早期，它们与其他兽脚类动物分化开来。

据悉，次生水生动物的适应性是从陆生脊椎动物祖先经历了30多次独立进化得来。几十年来，非鸟类恐龙被认为是这种模式的一个例外。只有少数物种被认为是部分或完全水生物种。然而，对这些假设仍然存在争议，主要是由于难以确定已灭绝动物水生习性的明确产生时间。

附：英文原文

Title: Subaqueous foraging among carnivorous dinosaurs

Author: Fabbri, Matteo, Navaln, Guillermo, Benson, Roger B. J., Pol, Diego, OConnor, Jingmai, Bhullar, Bhart-Anjan S., Erickson, Gregory M., Norell, Mark A., Orkney, Andrew, Lamanna, Matthew C., Zouhri, Samir, Becker, Justine, Emke, Amanda, Dal Sasso, Cristiano, Bindellini, Gabriele, Maganuco, Simone, Auditore, Marco, Ibrahim, Nizar

Issue&Volume: 2022-03-23

Abstract: Secondary aquatic adaptations evolved independently more than 30 times from terrestrial vertebrate ancestors1,2. For decades, non-avian dinosaurs were believed to be an exception to this pattern. Only a few species have been hypothesized to be partly or predominantly aquatic3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. However, these hypotheses remain controversial12,13, largely owing to the difficulty of identifying unambiguous anatomical adaptations for aquatic habits in extinct animals. Here we demonstrate that the relationship between bone density and aquatic ecologies across extant amniotes provides a reliable inference of aquatic habits in extinct species. We use this approach to evaluate the distribution of aquatic adaptations among non-avian dinosaurs. We find strong support for aquatic habits in spinosaurids, associated with a marked increase in bone density, which precedes the evolution of more conspicuous anatomical modifications, a pattern also observed in other aquatic reptiles and mammals14,15,16. Spinosaurids are revealed to be aquatic specialists with surprising ecological disparity, including subaqueous foraging behaviour in Spinosaurus and Baryonyx, and non-diving habits in Suchomimus. Adaptation to aquatic environments appeared in spinosaurids during the Early Cretaceous, following their divergence from other tetanuran theropods during the Early Jurassic17.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04528-0

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04528-0

Nature：《自然》，创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：69.504
官方网址：http://www.nature.com/
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