Holes in baby dinosaur bones show how football-sized hatchlings grew to 3-tonne teens

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Holes in baby dinosaur bones show how football-sized hatchlings grew to 3-tonne teens

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Despite their public image as torpid, lumbering creatures, many dinosaurs were evidently warm-blooded, highly active animals, capable of prolonged and strenuous aerobic exercise.

In new research, my colleagues and I determined how much energy minibus-sized dinosaurs called Maiasaura used while growing to adulthood.

Our results, published in the journal Paleobiology, show Maiasaura was capable of taking in huge amounts of energy and nutrients and using them for rapid growth and levels of activity comparable to those of modern mammals.

Read More: The Conversation

 

[+and-then]

This process reminds me of the role of osteoclasts and osteoblasts that build and repair our bones.  I wonder if these juveniles had the equivalent of our epiphyseal plates as their long bones were still growing.  

Edited October 3 by and-then