May 20, 2013

Fossil brain teaser




New study reveals patterns of dinosaur brain development

A new study conducted at the University of Bristol and published online today in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology sheds light on how the brain and inner ear developed in dinosaurs.

Stephan Lautenschlager from Bristol’s School of Earth Sciences, together with Tom Hübner from the Niedersächsische Landesmuseum in Hannover, Germany, picked the brains of 150 million year old dinosaurs.

The two palaeontologists studied different fossils of the Jurassic dinosaur Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki: a very young (juvenile) individual  of approximately three years of age and a fully grown specimen of more than 12 years of age.