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Testing for a dietary shift in the Early Cretaceous ceratopsian dinosaur Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis
Author(s) -
Landi Damiano,
King Logan,
Zhao Qi,
Rayfield Emily J.,
Benton Michael J.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
palaeontology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.69
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1475-4983
pISSN - 0031-0239
DOI - 10.1111/pala.12529
Subject(s) - hatchling , quadrupedalism , cretaceous , juvenile , biology , ontogeny , china , paleontology , ecology , zoology , evolutionary biology , geography , hatching , archaeology , genetics
Many dinosaurs may have shown ecological differentiation between hatchlings and adults, possibly because of the great size differential. The basal ceratopsian Psittacosaurus lujiatunensis is known from thousands of specimens from the Lower Cretaceous of China and these include many so‐called ‘juvenile clusters.’ During the early stages of ontogeny, P. lujiatunensis underwent a posture shift from quadrupedal to bipedal, and a dietary shift has also been postulated. In this study, we made a 2D mechanical analysis of the jaws of a hatchling and an adult to determine the differences between the two systems; we found some differences, but these were only modest. The adult was better suited to feeding on tough plant material than the hatchling, based on its higher values of absolute and relative bite forces and higher values of mechanical advantage, but there were no substantial shifts in jaw shape or function.