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During the Triassic Period (252-201 million years ago), mammalian-type reptiles called thérapaps coexisted with ancestors of dinosaurs, crocodiles, mammals, pterosaurs, turtles, frogs and lizards.
A group of thérapsides are dicynodontes. Researchers from the University of Uppsala in Sweden, as well as colleagues in Poland, have discovered fossils belonging to a new kind of gigantic dicynodont. The new species Lisowicia bojani is described in the newspaper Science.
The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old and has gone through many geological periods and profound changes. During the Triassic Period, about 252-201 million years ago, all the Earth's land came together and formed the vast continent called Pangea. During this time, the first dinosaurs were born, as well as ancestors of crocodiles, mammals, pterosaurs, turtles, frogs and lizards. Recently, scientists have been interested in another type of animal, the therapy. The therapids were "mammal-like" reptiles and are ancestors of the mammals, including humans, that we find nowadays. A group of thérapsides called dicynodontes. All dicynodont species were herbivores (plant eaters) and ranged in size from small burrowers to large browsers. Most of them were also without teeth. They survived the Permian mass extinction and became the main terrestrial herbivores of the Middle and Upper Triassic. It was thought that they had disappeared before the dinosaurs became the dominant form of Tetrapod on Earth.
For the first time, researchers from the Evolution and Development Research Program of Uppsala University, in collaboration with researchers from the Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw), have discovered fossils of 39, a new species of dicynodont in the Polish village of Lisowice. The species was named Lisowicia Bojani in the honor of the village and a German anatomist, Ludwig Heinrich Bojanus, worked in Vilnius and is known for his important anatomical discoveries. The results show that the Lisowicia was about the size of a modern day elephant, measuring about 4.5 meters long, 2.6 meters tall and weighing about 9 tons, or 40% more than anything another dicynodontus identified previously. The analysis of the limb bones showed that they had a rapid growth, much like a mammal or a dinosaur. He lived during the Upper Triassic, about 210-205 million years ago, about 10 million years later than previous discoveries of dicynodonts.
"The discovery of Lisowicia changes our ideas about the last story of the dicynodontes, triassic parents of mammals. This also raises many more questions about what makes them so big and so many dinosaurs, "says Dr. Tomasz Sulej, of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
"Dicynodonts were surprisingly successful animals in the Middle and Upper Triassic. Lisowicia is the youngest dicynodon and largest non-dinosaur terrestrial tetrapod of the Triassic. It is natural to want to know how dicynodonts have become so important. Lisowicia is extremely exciting because it is the subject of many of our classical ideas about the "mammal-like reptiles" of the Triassic, "says Dr. Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki, University of Uppsala.
The first fossil discoveries of Lisowice in Poland were made in 2005 by Robert Borz? Cki and Piotr Menducki. Since then, more than 1,000 bones and bone fragments have been collected in the region, including Lisowicia fossils. The region would have been a riverbed in the Upper Triassic.
The discovery of Lisowicia provides the first evidence that mammalian-sized elephant-sized dicynodonts were present at the same time as the more well-known long-necked sauropodomorphic dinosaurs, contrary to earlier belief. Sauropodomorphs include species such as Diplodocus or Brachiosaurus. It fills a gap in the fossil record of dicynodontes and shows that certain anatomical features of the members supposed to characterize large mammals or dinosaurs have also evolved in non-mammalian synapsis. Finally, these discoveries in Poland are the first important discoveries of recent Triassic dicynodontes in Europe.
"The discovery of such an important new species is a unique discovery in life," says Dr. Tomasz Sulej.
UPPSALA UNIVERSITY
Header Image – Bones of members of the dicynodont, Lisowice locality, Silesia, Poland. Credit: Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki
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