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A Triassic plesiosaurian skeleton and bone histology inform on evolution of a unique body plan
Secondary marine adaptation is a major pattern in amniote evolution, accompanied by specific bone histological adaptations. In the aftermath of the end-Permian extinction, diverse marine reptiles evolved early in the Triassic. Plesiosauria is the most diverse and one of the longest-lived clades of m...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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American Association for the Advancement of Science
2017
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5729018/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29242826 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1701144 |
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author | Wintrich, Tanja Hayashi, Shoji Houssaye, Alexandra Nakajima, Yasuhisa Sander, P. Martin |
author_facet | Wintrich, Tanja Hayashi, Shoji Houssaye, Alexandra Nakajima, Yasuhisa Sander, P. Martin |
author_sort | Wintrich, Tanja |
collection | PubMed |
description | Secondary marine adaptation is a major pattern in amniote evolution, accompanied by specific bone histological adaptations. In the aftermath of the end-Permian extinction, diverse marine reptiles evolved early in the Triassic. Plesiosauria is the most diverse and one of the longest-lived clades of marine reptiles, but its bone histology is least known among the major marine amniote clades. Plesiosaurians had a unique and puzzling body plan, sporting four evenly shaped pointed flippers and (in most clades) a small head on a long, stiffened neck. The flippers were used as hydrofoils in underwater flight. A wide temporal, morphological, and morphometric gap separates plesiosaurians from their closest relatives (basal pistosaurs, Bobosaurus). For nearly two centuries, plesiosaurians were thought to appear suddenly in the earliest Jurassic after the end-Triassic extinctions. We describe the first Triassic plesiosaurian, from the Rhaetian of Germany, and compare its long bone histology to that of later plesiosaurians sampled for this study. The new taxon is recovered as a basal member of the Pliosauridae, revealing that diversification of plesiosaurians was a Triassic event and that several lineages must have crossed into the Jurassic. Plesiosaurian histology is strikingly uniform and different from stem sauropterygians. Histology suggests the concurrent evolution of fast growth and an elevated metabolic rate as an adaptation to cruising and efficient foraging in the open sea. The new specimen corroborates the hypothesis that open ocean life of plesiosaurians facilitated their survival of the end-Triassic extinctions. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5729018 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-57290182017-12-14 A Triassic plesiosaurian skeleton and bone histology inform on evolution of a unique body plan Wintrich, Tanja Hayashi, Shoji Houssaye, Alexandra Nakajima, Yasuhisa Sander, P. Martin Sci Adv Research Articles Secondary marine adaptation is a major pattern in amniote evolution, accompanied by specific bone histological adaptations. In the aftermath of the end-Permian extinction, diverse marine reptiles evolved early in the Triassic. Plesiosauria is the most diverse and one of the longest-lived clades of marine reptiles, but its bone histology is least known among the major marine amniote clades. Plesiosaurians had a unique and puzzling body plan, sporting four evenly shaped pointed flippers and (in most clades) a small head on a long, stiffened neck. The flippers were used as hydrofoils in underwater flight. A wide temporal, morphological, and morphometric gap separates plesiosaurians from their closest relatives (basal pistosaurs, Bobosaurus). For nearly two centuries, plesiosaurians were thought to appear suddenly in the earliest Jurassic after the end-Triassic extinctions. We describe the first Triassic plesiosaurian, from the Rhaetian of Germany, and compare its long bone histology to that of later plesiosaurians sampled for this study. The new taxon is recovered as a basal member of the Pliosauridae, revealing that diversification of plesiosaurians was a Triassic event and that several lineages must have crossed into the Jurassic. Plesiosaurian histology is strikingly uniform and different from stem sauropterygians. Histology suggests the concurrent evolution of fast growth and an elevated metabolic rate as an adaptation to cruising and efficient foraging in the open sea. The new specimen corroborates the hypothesis that open ocean life of plesiosaurians facilitated their survival of the end-Triassic extinctions. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2017-12-13 /pmc/articles/PMC5729018/ /pubmed/29242826 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1701144 Text en Copyright © 2017 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Articles Wintrich, Tanja Hayashi, Shoji Houssaye, Alexandra Nakajima, Yasuhisa Sander, P. Martin A Triassic plesiosaurian skeleton and bone histology inform on evolution of a unique body plan |
title | A Triassic plesiosaurian skeleton and bone histology inform on evolution of a unique body plan |
title_full | A Triassic plesiosaurian skeleton and bone histology inform on evolution of a unique body plan |
title_fullStr | A Triassic plesiosaurian skeleton and bone histology inform on evolution of a unique body plan |
title_full_unstemmed | A Triassic plesiosaurian skeleton and bone histology inform on evolution of a unique body plan |
title_short | A Triassic plesiosaurian skeleton and bone histology inform on evolution of a unique body plan |
title_sort | triassic plesiosaurian skeleton and bone histology inform on evolution of a unique body plan |
topic | Research Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5729018/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29242826 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1701144 |
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