The first juvenile specimens of Plateosaurus engelhardti from Frick, Switzerland: isolated neural arches and their implications for developmental plasticity in a basal sauropodomorph
The dinosaur Plateosaurus engelhardti is the most abundant dinosaur in the Late Triassic of Europe and the best known basal sauropodomorph. Plateosaurus engelhardti was one of the first sauropodomorph dinosaurs to display a large body size. Remains can be found in the Norian stage of the Late Triass...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:2c51db08127840059a0156fb7d8e5f66 2024-01-07T09:43:39+01:00 The first juvenile specimens of Plateosaurus engelhardti from Frick, Switzerland: isolated neural arches and their implications for developmental plasticity in a basal sauropodomorph Rebecca Hofmann P. Martin Sander 2014-07-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.458 https://doaj.org/article/2c51db08127840059a0156fb7d8e5f66 EN eng PeerJ Inc. https://peerj.com/articles/458.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/458/ https://doaj.org/toc/2167-8359 doi:10.7717/peerj.458 2167-8359 https://doaj.org/article/2c51db08127840059a0156fb7d8e5f66 PeerJ, Vol 2, p e458 (2014) Late Triassic Norian Switzerland Basal Sauropodomorpha Plateosaurus engelhardti Juvenile Medicine R Biology (General) QH301-705.5 article 2014 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.458 2023-12-10T01:53:42Z The dinosaur Plateosaurus engelhardti is the most abundant dinosaur in the Late Triassic of Europe and the best known basal sauropodomorph. Plateosaurus engelhardti was one of the first sauropodomorph dinosaurs to display a large body size. Remains can be found in the Norian stage of the Late Triassic in over 40 localities in Central Europe (France, Germany, and Switzerland) and in Greenland. Since the first discovery of P. engelhardti no juvenile specimens of this species had been described in detail. Here we describe the first remains of juvenile individuals, isolated cervical and dorsal neural arches from Switzerland. These were separated postmortem from their respective centra because of unfused neurocentral sutures. However the specimens share the same neural arch morphology found in adults. Morphometric analysis suggests body lengths of the juvenile individuals that is greater than those of most adult specimens. This supports the hypothesis of developmental plasticity in Plateosaurus engelhardti that previously had been based on histological data only. Alternative hypotheses for explaining the poor correlation between ontogenetic stage and size in this taxon are multiple species or sexual morphs with little morphological variance or time-averaging of individuals from populations differing in body size. Article in Journal/Newspaper Greenland Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Greenland PeerJ 2 e458 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Late Triassic Norian Switzerland Basal Sauropodomorpha Plateosaurus engelhardti Juvenile Medicine R Biology (General) QH301-705.5 |
spellingShingle |
Late Triassic Norian Switzerland Basal Sauropodomorpha Plateosaurus engelhardti Juvenile Medicine R Biology (General) QH301-705.5 Rebecca Hofmann P. Martin Sander The first juvenile specimens of Plateosaurus engelhardti from Frick, Switzerland: isolated neural arches and their implications for developmental plasticity in a basal sauropodomorph |
topic_facet |
Late Triassic Norian Switzerland Basal Sauropodomorpha Plateosaurus engelhardti Juvenile Medicine R Biology (General) QH301-705.5 |
description |
The dinosaur Plateosaurus engelhardti is the most abundant dinosaur in the Late Triassic of Europe and the best known basal sauropodomorph. Plateosaurus engelhardti was one of the first sauropodomorph dinosaurs to display a large body size. Remains can be found in the Norian stage of the Late Triassic in over 40 localities in Central Europe (France, Germany, and Switzerland) and in Greenland. Since the first discovery of P. engelhardti no juvenile specimens of this species had been described in detail. Here we describe the first remains of juvenile individuals, isolated cervical and dorsal neural arches from Switzerland. These were separated postmortem from their respective centra because of unfused neurocentral sutures. However the specimens share the same neural arch morphology found in adults. Morphometric analysis suggests body lengths of the juvenile individuals that is greater than those of most adult specimens. This supports the hypothesis of developmental plasticity in Plateosaurus engelhardti that previously had been based on histological data only. Alternative hypotheses for explaining the poor correlation between ontogenetic stage and size in this taxon are multiple species or sexual morphs with little morphological variance or time-averaging of individuals from populations differing in body size. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Rebecca Hofmann P. Martin Sander |
author_facet |
Rebecca Hofmann P. Martin Sander |
author_sort |
Rebecca Hofmann |
title |
The first juvenile specimens of Plateosaurus engelhardti from Frick, Switzerland: isolated neural arches and their implications for developmental plasticity in a basal sauropodomorph |
title_short |
The first juvenile specimens of Plateosaurus engelhardti from Frick, Switzerland: isolated neural arches and their implications for developmental plasticity in a basal sauropodomorph |
title_full |
The first juvenile specimens of Plateosaurus engelhardti from Frick, Switzerland: isolated neural arches and their implications for developmental plasticity in a basal sauropodomorph |
title_fullStr |
The first juvenile specimens of Plateosaurus engelhardti from Frick, Switzerland: isolated neural arches and their implications for developmental plasticity in a basal sauropodomorph |
title_full_unstemmed |
The first juvenile specimens of Plateosaurus engelhardti from Frick, Switzerland: isolated neural arches and their implications for developmental plasticity in a basal sauropodomorph |
title_sort |
first juvenile specimens of plateosaurus engelhardti from frick, switzerland: isolated neural arches and their implications for developmental plasticity in a basal sauropodomorph |
publisher |
PeerJ Inc. |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.458 https://doaj.org/article/2c51db08127840059a0156fb7d8e5f66 |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
Greenland |
genre_facet |
Greenland |
op_source |
PeerJ, Vol 2, p e458 (2014) |
op_relation |
https://peerj.com/articles/458.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/458/ https://doaj.org/toc/2167-8359 doi:10.7717/peerj.458 2167-8359 https://doaj.org/article/2c51db08127840059a0156fb7d8e5f66 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.458 |
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PeerJ |
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2 |
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e458 |
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