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An elephant-sized Late Triassic synapsid with erect limbs
A proto-mammalian giant
Early terrestrial amniotes evolved into two groups: the sauropsids, which led to the bird and dinosaur lineages, and the synapsids, which led to mammals. Synapsids were diverse during the Permian but were greatly reduced after the end-Permian extinction (about 252 million years ago). The few groups that survived into the Triassic were mostly small and retained a sprawling gait. Sulej and Niedźwiedzki, however, describe a dicynodont from the Late Triassic of Poland that is as large as some coexisting dinosaurs and appears to have had an erect gait—like modern mammals. Thus, megaherbivores in the Triassic were not only dinosaurs.
Science, this issue p. 78
Abstract
Here, we describe the dicynodont Lisowicia bojani, from the Late Triassic of Poland, a gigantic synapsid with seemingly upright subcursorial limbs that reached an estimated length of more than 4.5 meters, height of 2.6 meters, and body mass of 9 tons. Lisowicia is the youngest undisputed dicynodont and the largest nondinosaurian terrestrial tetrapod from the Triassic. The lack of lines of arrested growth and the highly remodeled cortex of its limb bones suggest permanently rapid growth and recalls that of dinosaurs and mammals. The discovery of Lisowicia overturns the established picture of the Triassic megaherbivore radiation as a phenomenon restricted to dinosaurs and shows that stem-group mammals were capable of reaching body sizes that were not attained again in mammalian evolution until the latest Eocene.
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Science
Volume 363 | Issue 6422
4 January 2019
4 January 2019
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Received: 28 November 2016
Resubmitted: 4 August 2018
Accepted: 19 October 2018
Published in print: 4 January 2019
Acknowledgments
We thank J. Dzik (Institute of Paleobiology, PAS) for proposing this research and support, M. Dec (Institute of Paleobiology, PAS) for help with preparation of dicynodont shoulder girdle virtual model, P. E. Ahlberg (Uppsala University) for discussion, D. Snitting (Uppsala University) for help with phylogenetic and computed tomography data, N. Campione (University of New England) for his help with body mass estimate, and K. Zaremba-Niedźwiedzka (Uppsala University) for help during preparation of the manuscript. We are very thankful to anonymous reviewers whose comments radically improved the final version of the paper. Funding: The study was supported by Polish grant (2012/07/B/NZ8/02707) and Swedish Vetenskapsrådet grant (2017-05248). Author contributions: T.S. designed the study. T.S. and G.N. performed the comparative and analytical work, participated in morphological studies, and wrote the paper. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests. Data and materials availability: All described specimens are accessioned at the Institute of Paleobiology, PAS (Poland).
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NCN Poland: 2012/07/B/NZ8/02707
Vetenskapsrådet Sweden: 2017-05248
Ministrstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego Poland: 3941/B/P01/2009/36
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