Robert R. Reisz*, Aaron R. H. LeBlanc, Hillary C. Maddin, Thomas W. Dudgeon, Diane Scott, Timothy Huang , Jun Chen, Chuan-Mu Chen & Shiming Zhong. Nat. Commun. 2020, 11:2240. Published 07 May 2020
Rare occurrences of dinosaurian embryos are punctuated by even rarer preservation of their development. Here we report on dental development in multiple embryos of the Early Jurassic Lufengosaurus from China, and compare these to patterns in a hatchling and adults.
Histology and CT data show that dental formation and development occurred early in ontogeny, with several cycles of tooth development without root resorption occurring within a common crypt prior to hatching. This differs from the condition in hatchling and adult teeth of Lufengosaurus, and is reminiscent of the complex dentitions of some adult sauropods, suggesting that their derived dental systems likely evolved through paedomorphosis. Ontogenetic changes in successive generations of embryonic teeth of Lufengosaurus suggest that the pencil-like teeth in many sauropods also evolved via paedomorphosis, providing a mechanism for the convergent evolution of small, structurally simple teeth in giant diplodocoids and titanosaurids.
Therefore, such developmental perturbations, more commonly associated with small vertebrates, were likely also essential events in sauropod evolution.
Histological thin sections of embryonic skull of Lufengosaurus showing dental anatomy.
Geometric morphometric analysis of embryonic and adult sauropodomorph dentition.
Red Dots Represent Lufengosaurus teeth from embryos (Le1-3), juvenile (Lj), and adult (La).
Shape of embryo teeth resemble adult teeth of Diplodocid and Titanosaur adults.
Black dots represent various large sauropod taxa.
Ontogeny and paedomorphosis in sauropodomorph dinosaurs.
This research was led by Prof. Robert R. Reisz, chief scientist of "PlaPac Team" of ICFS in Jilin University (China) and Distinguished Professor of Paleontology of University of Toronto (Canada)，he is the first and corresponding author of the paper. Other co-authors include Dr. Aaron R. H. LeBlanc from University of Alberta (Canada), Dr. Hillary C. Maddin and Dr. Thomas W. Dudgeon from Carleton University (Canada), Ms. Diane Scott from University of Toronto (Canada), Prof. Timothy Huang and Prof. Jun Chen from Jilin University (China) , Dr. Chuan-Mu Chen from National Chung Hsing University (China Taiwan), as well as Prof. Shiming Zhong from Chuxiong Prefectural Museum (China). In addition, Jilin University(China), University of Toronto Mississauga, NSERC (Canada), Ministry of Education (China Taiwan) and DFG (Germany) had provided financial supports for the project.
Read more at Nature Communications:
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16045-7
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16045-7
Some important statistics of the news reports of the paper:
(English Reports)
https://phys.org/news/2020-05-dinosaur-tooth-fossils-crucial-insight.html
https://www.utm.utoronto.ca/biology/news/early-jurassic-dinosaur-embryos-tell-ancient-tooth-tale
(Chinese Reports)
The Report from Chinese National News Agency (Xinhua Agency)
http://www.xinhuanet.com/tech/2020-05/10/c_1125965042.htm
http://www.xinhuanet.com/photo/2020-05/10/c_1125965338_2.htm
The Report from the most important newspaper ‘People‘s Daily’
https://wap.peopleapp.com/article/5476277/5395038?from=singlemessagee
The Report from Chinanews Agency
http://www.chinanews.com/m/sh/2020/05-10/9180106.shtml
The Report from the APP of the China Government
https://article.xuexi.cn/articles/index.html?art_id=8840227340786921925&item_id=8840227340786921925&study_style_id=video_default&pid=&ptype=-1&source=share&share_to=wx_single
The Japanese Language Edited Report from Xinhua Agency
吉林大学の研究者ら、恐竜の歯の進化で新発見
https://this.kiji.is/631817252076160097?nsukey=zcCWwaB2uEKKCeyOZczgvPIMDqwMhq0liL2x7eWZmnAvbonelZl7VMAtg7LkwH2A8sfFueohtr7lSiZrhXPr2HaE0QXplj%2BreAi0NlB8%2B%2B%2FcA3f%2BJyyY8NeFQm7NHEoDd%2Fhh96%2B0IHhEHCsYbdTIstpc8rEXkTzcApYLTm5XkSuu9AKUeb90qbAOkisped3W%2Fd6fEiSV%2BLvyp%2Fgou6V7Mw%3D%3D
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