• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

99-Million-Year-Old Fossils Reveal This Dog-Sized Dinosaur Burrowed Underground

July 10, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

When you picture dinosaurs you probably imagine huge, fearsome beasts chilling above the ground – but not all dinos fit this bill, as one small, semi-subterranean species that has been freshly discovered proves. 

Advertisement

Fona herzogae, as the new species has been named, lived 99 million years ago in what is now Utah – and it spent at least part of its time burrowing underground.

Unearthed in the Mussentuchit Member of the Cedar Mountain Formation, Fona had some funky features and was also incredibly well preserved, which tipped palaeontologists off that something strange was afoot.

“Fona is often found complete, with many of its bones preserved in the original death pose, chest down with splayed forelimbs, and in exceptionally good condition,” Haviv Avrahami, first author of a study describing the discovery, said in a statement. “If it had already been underground in a burrow before death, it would have made this type of preservation more likely.” 

In addition to its unexpectedly good preservation, Fona was well-adapted to life below the surface. It was small-bodied – roughly the size of a dog – with a simple body plan and no fancy headgear or other outlandish appendages. Instead, it had large bicep muscles, strong muscle attachment points on the hips and legs, fused bones along the pelvis, and hindlimbs that were proportionally larger than the forelimbs – all of which are features shared with animals known for digging or burrowing.

All in all, the researchers think this points to the lil’ dino being semi-fossorial – meaning it burrows part of the time.

3D printed Fona skull

A 3D printed Fona skull.

Image credit: Lindsay Zanno

“Fona skeletons are way more common in this area than we would predict for a small animal with fragile bones,” corresponding author Lindsay Zanno explained. “The best explanation for why we find so many of them, and recover them in small bundles of multiple individuals, is that they were living at least part of the time underground. Essentially, Fona did the hard work for us, by burying itself all over this area.” 

While the tunnels and chambers of this digging dinosaur are yet to be discovered, palaeontologists have previously discovered those of its closest relative, Oryctodromeus, in Idaho and Montana. Fona and Oryctodromeus have a number of anatomical features in common, which further suggests they shared a semi-fossorial lifestyle

As for what Fona looked like, Avrahami believes it was “most likely covered in a downy coat of colorful feathers” – sounds like a slay to us.

Alongside expanding our knowledge of subterranean dinosaurs and dino diversity in general, the discovery sheds light on life during the mid-Cretaceous – both above and below ground.

Advertisement

“Fona gives us insight into the third dimension an animal can occupy by moving underground,” said Avrahami. “It adds to the richness of the fossil record and expands the known diversity of small-bodied herbivores, which remain poorly understood despite being incredibly integral components of Cretaceous ecosystems.”

Fona herzogae dinosaurs

Fona was probably covered in a downy coat of colorful feathers.

Image credit: Jorge Gonzalez

It also highlights just how narrow-minded we’ve become in our view of dinosaurs – even though they’re literally still all around us.

“People tend to have a myopic view of dinosaurs that hasn’t kept up with the science,” Zanno concluded. “We now know that dinosaur diversity ran the gamut from tiny arboreal gliders and nocturnal hunters, to sloth-like grazers, and yes, even subterranean shelterers.”

The study is published in The Anatomical Record.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Pope and Bairstow rebuild England innings after Yadav blows
  2. BAE Systems says ready to support new U.S., UK, Australia defence partnership
  3. Only 1 Percent Of Chemicals Have Been Discovered – How Can We Find The Rest?
  4. Free Bella: Activists Urge To Release Captive Beluga From Mega Mall In South Korea

Source Link: 99-Million-Year-Old Fossils Reveal This Dog-Sized Dinosaur Burrowed Underground

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Two Major Coral Species Now Functionally Extinct In Florida Keys, After Record-Breaking Marine Heatwave
  • A “Super-Earth” In The Habitable Zone Is Half The Distance To Comparable Worlds
  • Adorable But Critically Endangered Bornean Orangutan Born In Conservation Success
  • How Did The FDA Settle On The “2,000 Calories Per Day” Guideline?
  • Comet 3I/ATLAS Losing At Least Two Kangaroos’ Worth Of Dust Every Second
  • Mummified Dinosaur Duo Prove They Had Hooves, Marking “The First Confirmed Hooved Reptile”
  • What Do The Numbers On Your Toaster Really Mean?
  • NASA Vs. Elon Musk: Is A Moon Landing This Decade Off The Cards?
  • Scientists Explored Some Of The Deepest Parts Of The Ocean And Spotted Some Seriously Weird Deep-Sea Creatures
  • 500-Meter-Tall Megatsunami Struck Remote Alaskan Fjord After Massive Landslide
  • 3I/ATLAS, CKM Syndrome, And Mosquitoes’ Final Frontier
  • Male Humpback Dolphins Spotted Wearing Sea Sponge “Wigs” To Woo The Ladies
  • Can’t Sleep? The Military Sleep Trick That Helps You Fall Asleep in Just 2 Minutes
  • Why You Should Really, Really Not Eat Dolphin Meat
  • Odd Flashes Of Light On The Moon Have Been Recorded For Over A Thousand Years. What Are They?
  • The New York Times Said Machines Wouldn’t Fly For A Million Years (69 Days Before The First Flight)
  • IFLScience The Big Questions: Why Do People Believe In The Paranormal?
  • What Is “Japanese Walking”, And Should You Be Doing It?
  • AI Chatbots Found To Violate Ethical Standards When It Comes To Mental Health Discussions
  • Finding The Last Saolas: The Hunt For One Of The World’s Rarest Mammals Is On
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version