Birds with crests grow to around 80% before the crest starts to grow
Retention of juvenile characteristic well into ontogeny
Looks like two different species
REFERENCE :
Relative skull growth
Example: Hypacrosaurus
If it grew in a linear fashion it would have a crest around half the size of the adlut
Hell creek formation
Produces last dinosaurs
Dinosaur species - Skulls
that change shape during
ontogeny
Pachycephalosaurs, Stygimoloch and Dracorex
Cant determine relationship fully by looking at morphology
Spike on Dracorex are growing, spike on
Stygimoloch are reabsorbing and dome is growing
and Pachycehalsaur dome is solid and spikes are
still reabsorbing
Easy to hypothesize that this is a growth series but need evidence
Triceratops
Horner and Goowdin 2006 - Major cranial changes during
triceratops ontogeny :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1635501/
Juveniles grow horns grow backwards and then start to
grow forwards and the triangular spikes along the frill as
juviniles flatten out when they are older
Cut open the skulls and found degree of sponginess relative to age. Smallest skull
is spongy, intermediate was spongy however largest one is spongy also.
Torosaurus - 3m long skull looks like triceratops but has mature bone
Has holes in its frill.
John Scannella 2010
5 questions for John Scannella
http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2010/09/torosaurus-is-triceratops-5-questions-for-paleontologist-john-scannella/
Torosaurus Marsh, 1891, is Triceratops Marsh, 1889 (Ceratopsidae:
Chasmosaurinae): Synonymy Through Ontogeny
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1080/02724634.2010.483632
Hole starting to form in
triceratops and shows as
open in Torosaurus. Also
found transitional skulls
‘Nedoceratops’: An Example of a Transitional Morphology 2010 -
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0028705
No juvenile Torosaurus found to date
Anatatitan is a juvenile Edmontasaurus
Cranial Growth and Variation in Edmontosaurs (Dinosauria: Hadrosauridae): Implications for Latest
Cretaceous Megaherbivore Diversity in North
Americahttp://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0025186
T-rex and nanotyranus
Nano had 17 teeth has juvenlie bone, tyrannosaurus
had 12 and more mature bone
Less teeth as they get older
Dinosaur Census Reveals Abundant Tyrannosaurus and Rare Ontogenetic Stages in the Upper
Cretaceous Hell Creek Formation (Maastrichtian), Montana,
USAhttp://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0016574