At https://phys.org/news/2020-08-dinosaurs-unique-bone-key-weight.html … weighing upt to 8000lb the Hadrosaur, or duck billed dinosaurs, were among the largest dinosaurs to roam the earth. How did theri skeletons support and allow these plant eating animals with long necks to walk and feed, or just hold up the immense weight of their bodies. In velikovskian circles the argument has always been that gravity must have been different back in the dinosaur era. More recently paleontologists have sought to explain the oddity by claimed they had light bones, like birds (which allowed flight). This idea is not perfect as some flying dinosaurs have no connection with those dinosaurs thought to have evolved into birds. Now we have an interesting new line of research at PLOS ONE (see also https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237042 ). Full papaer at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0…
A collaboration between paleontologists, mechanical engineers, and biomedical engineers, has looked at the bone structures of Hadrosaurs – and other lumbering giants. It is the trabecular bone structures that allow them to support such massive bodies, a spongy bone form in the interior of their bones. It is unique to dinosaurs. These are not bird bones. That idea, it seems, has been laid to rest, in spite of its popularity with mainstream. The trabecular bone tissue surrounds tiny spaces in the interior of the bones. Unlike mammals, and birds, the trabecular bone does not increase in thickness as the body size of dinosaurs increases. Insted, it incresed in the density of the spongy bone. Without this weight saving device herbivores would had had great difficulty in actually moving, or perhaps even in standing upright.
The researchers used engineering failure theories and allometry scaling to analyse CT scans of the distal femur and proximal tibia of fossil dinosaurs. The idea was to better understand the bone structure of extinct species and is actually the first one to assess the relationship between bone architecture and movement in dinosaurs, thereby plugging a gap in knowledge. See also www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8651607/ …
William sent in a link to www.yahoo.com/news/fossil-reveals-doubly-fatal-triassic-084436077.html … where we have a savage encounter – or should that be nature red in tooth and claw. Here we are told that a dolphin like animal was trying to swallow a large marine lizard, and the struggle left both of them dead. At https://phys.org/news/2020-08-massive-well-preserved-reptile-belly-prehi… … where there is no mention of a struggle. If you wish to clarify which one is right go to https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2020.101347 … a massive well preserved reptile has been found in the belly of a large Ichthyosaur in China …
… it was dug out of a quarry. A fossil within a fossil. Remarkable – and a largely undigested one at that. Ichthyosaurs have been compared to dolphins but this one was clearly a predator as it had swallowed whole a 4m long lizard, thalattosaur. The researchers note that the Ichthyosaur's stomach contents were not etched by stomach acid. It must have died quite soon after ingesting. Another example of rapid fossilisation. Juices in the gut had not had time to break down tissue from the lizard.
See also www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8647513/ … where all is explained. The Ichthyosaur had taken a huge bite out of the lizard. Its entire middle section was found inside the belly of the predator …