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When out fossil hunting...

So I thought I would do a post about things to remember when out and about doing your own fossil hunts, hopefully you'll find it helpfu...

Wednesday 17 August 2016

Palaeoart: Island Dwarfism

I have chosen this artwork by Mark Witton because of the interesting ecology that lies behind it.


This artwork shows us the giraffe sixed pterosaur Hatzegopteryx feeding on what appear to be juvenile sauropods. Its a natural assumption, however the sauropods pictured here are called Magyarosaurus and they are in fact adult dinosaurs. 

In the late Cretaceous, where modern day Romania is, there is an isolated island in the Tethys Sea, this is Hateg Island. It is a brilliant case study in palaeontology. It is an example of island dwarfism. This is an evolutionary trait that is found when herbivores become smaller in size so as not to deplete the vegetation to the point where it will not replenish. As the herbivores get smaller as do the carnivores. They do not need to be so giant now that the prey is small, again this is conserving food so that the herbivores can breed and replenish the food stocks. 

So why are the pterosaurs so giant? This is believed to be due to the fact that they can fly. There is no need to succumb to dwarfism if they can easily leave the island to find more food. Thus the pterosaurs retained their size. 

Hateg Island is not the only example of island dwarfism. Our ancient relatives Homo floresiensis on the Indonesian island of Flores were dwarves around 12,000 years ago, elephants were also dwarves here, both now extinct.

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