Many of us may have an idea that dinosaurs are animal giants of spectacular size, slow movement, and long lives for centuries.
However, recent research has shattered this imagination and revealed a surprising fact: dinosaurs lived fast and died young.
Unlike mammals, which reach full size and stop growing, until they die, dinosaurs continued to grow throughout their lives and often died before reaching their maximum size..
How do scientists know this? The answer lies in the hidden secrets within their bones. Like trees, dinosaur bones have growth rings that reveal their age and growth rate.
Many of us may have the idea that dinosaurs were giant animals of spectacular size, slow moving, and lived for centuries. However, recent research has shattered this imagination and revealed a surprising fact: dinosaurs lived fast and died young. Their life cycle is surprisingly short.
Professor Paul Barrett, a leading palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, explains this change in understanding.
“We used to think that dinosaurs lived a very long time. “However, one of the big surprises that we got from various studies in the last 20 years is that, actually, dinosaurs grew very fast, but their lives were short,” he said, quoted from IFL Science.
Rapid growth, far exceeding anything seen in modern mammals, is key to understanding their life spans. Unlike mammals, which reach full size and stop growing, until death, dinosaurs continued to grow throughout their lives and often died before reaching their maximum size.
Read: Fujianvenator, a bird-like dinosaur that lived in the Jurassic era
Dinosaur illustration. Photo: Pixabay/Public Domain
How do scientists know this? The answer lies in the hidden secrets within their bones. Like trees, dinosaur bones have growth rings that reveal their age and growth rate. By carefully analyzing the distance of the circles, scientists were able to reconstruct the life story of each dinosaur, from hatching to death.
The research paints a fascinating picture of varying life spans in the world of dinosaurs. Sauropods, which reached lengths of up to 30 m, likely lived the longest, with estimates ranging from 30 to 50 years.
Read: New species of dinosaur has the oldest “armor” found in Asia
Femur of the dinosaur Hypsilophodon foxi. Credit: Emily Brown via IFL Science
In contrast, smaller dinosaurs such as ornithopods, which barely exceeded 3 m in length, lived very short lives. It only reaches maturity in 4-5 years and rarely beyond that, then dies.
This surprising difference in lifespan breaks the correlation of large size and age traditionally observed in modern animals. While larger animals such as elephants and whales usually live much longer than smaller creatures, dinosaurs appear to have broken this rule.
Read: New species of dinosaur has the oldest “armor” found in Asia
Comparison of the size of dinosaur bones with the human body. Photo: he Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London via IFL Scinece
But what caused this giant to meet his end? Temporary predation undoubtedly played a role, dinosaurs faced the same challenges as other living creatures. Disease, accidents, starvation, and ultimately old age all contributed to their deaths.
Life span discovery their relatively short history not only corrects our understanding of dinosaurs, but also offers a glimpse into the dynamics of prehistoric ecosystems. Imagine a world, where decade-old sauropods roamed alongside tiny dinosaurs nearly reaching the end of their short lives. This dynamic view adds another layer of complexity to the already fascinating world of dinosaurs.
With this latest fact, we might be able to start changing the image that dinosaurs were ancient giants who grew slowly and were hundreds of years old, to be replaced with the image of living creatures that grew quickly and lived life quickly too.
2023-12-12 04:06:27
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