Dinosaurs occupied a variety of niches in their habitat — they walked on the surface of the land, flew like birds and lived in trees, wandered through swamps and even swam in rivers and seas. But, as it turned out — That's not all. In the mid-Cretaceous period, there were dinosaurs that lived underground. The new dinosaur was named Fona herzogae; it lived for 99 million years in the United States, or more precisely in the state of Utah. Paleontologists have been able to obtain quite a lot of information about this ancestor of the thescelosaurus (bipedal herbivorous ornithopod), thanks to the excellent preservation of its fossils.
A newly discovered dinosaur, Fona herzogae, lived underground. Photo source: scitechdaily.com
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Where the underground dinosaur lived
The dinosaur Fon lived in an area that 99 million years ago was a large floodplain ecosystem with an abundance of rivers, surrounded by the shores of a large inland ocean to the east, and active volcanoes and mountains to the west. The climate was warm and very humid. And given the many active volcanoes, it can be assumed that the area was also heavily polluted.
Employees from North Carolina State University, together with colleagues from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, discovered fossils of the dinosaur Fona herzogae back in 2013 in sediments of the formation Cedar Mountain, that is, in a geological layer that is located 20 kilometers northwest of the city of Moab (Utah).
Scientists realized that the dinosaur dug holes from some characteristic physiological features. In addition, indirect confirmation of this is the excellent preservation of fossils.
3D reconstruction of the skeleton of the dinosaur Fona herzogae. Photo source: naked-science.ru
What did dinosaurs eat underground
Surely many people imagine an underground dinosaur as some kind of predatory monster that was waiting for prey in its cave or hole, and then bloodthirstyly tore it apart. But in fact, as the researchers report, it was the size of a large dog and at the same time quite harmless, as it ate grass, unlike another small but extremely dangerous dinosaur, Dineobellator notohesperus, which we talked about earlier. Von's closest relatives were armored, horned and crested dinosaurs.
True, the body structure of Fona herzogae was simpler, in the sense that it was not as richly “decorated” and did not have a buzzer, like the aforementioned crested dinosaur. But this does not mean that he was boring.
The main distinguishing feature of Fon's dinosaur was the presence of several anatomical features that are present in modern burrowing subterranean animals. These features include large biceps muscles, powerful muscle attachment points on the hips and legs, fused bones along the pelvis, and the size ratio of the hind and forelimbs, as researchers report in the journal The Anatomical Record. But the evidence that the animal spent most of its life underground does not stop there.
The skull of the dinosaur Fona herzogae. Photo source: scitechdaily.com
Why Von's dinosaur is well preserved
As mentioned above, scientists paid attention to the preservation of the bones. The fact is that the bones of small animals are usually poorly preserved. The reason is that small bones rot faster or, for example, become prey for other animals. Perhaps that is why all dinosaurs, in our minds, were giants. In fact, there could be even more small dinosaurs than large ones.
But, unlike other small dinosaurs, scientists find the remains of Fona herzogae intact, that is, in a death pose with many well-preserved bones. That is, they lay chest down with their limbs apart. The remains are most likely to be so well preserved if the animal died underground, in a burrow.
Scientists also note that Fona skeletons are found in the area much more often than would be expected for a small animal with fragile bones . Researchers discover remains in small groups of several individuals.
Scientists cannot find any other explanation for this oddity, other than the fact that the dinosaur lived in a hole.
It should be noted that Fona is not the first known dinosaur that lived underground. Earlier, it became known that its closest relative, Oryctodromeus, dug tunnels and chambers for itself. However, now, in order to finally confirm their assumption, scientists need to find at least one preserved Fona burrow, as was already done with the dinosaur Oryctodromeus.
The dinosaur Oryctodromeus was a relative of Fona. Photo source: wikimedia.org
Fona is also a distant relative of another dinosaur whose fossils were discovered in North Carolina — Thescelosaurus neglectus. Currently, his remains are kept in the museum. Presumably, it was also underground, or at least partially underground.
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According to the researchers, the background provides insight into the third dimension that an animal may occupy. This enriches the fossil record and expands the known diversity of small herbivores, which remain poorly understood despite being incredibly integral components of Cretaceous ecosystems.
Finally, Fona, although a small dinosaur, was not the smallest. The dinosaur Mahakala omnogovae, the ancestor of the modern hummingbird, is currently considered the smallest. His body size did not exceed 70 centimeters.