For the first time scientists have found that some dinosaur species had thick layers of cartilages which might have boosted their height by at least 10 per cent than previously thought.
Researchers at the University of Missouri (MU) and Ohio University found that the thick layers of cartilage in some dinosaurs’ joints that didn’t fossilise might have added more than one foot to their heights.
According to them, the ends of many dinosaurs’ long bones, including leg bones such as the femur or tibia, are rounded and rough and lack major bony joint structures.
This indicated that very thick layers of cartilage probably helped form the joints connecting these bones, said researcher Casey Holliday, an evolutionary anatomist at the University of Missouri.
“And this would have added significant height to certain dinosaurs,” Holliday was quoted as saying by LiveScience.
In contrast, mammals have bony joint structures and much less of the soft-tissue cartilage, he said. The scientists reached these conclusions by examining ostriches and alligators, the closest, modern-day relatives of the extinct giants. —PTI