The 10,000-mile march through fire that made dinosaurs possible is a remarkable story of survival and evolution. New research suggests that the forerunners of dinosaurs and crocodiles in the Triassic period were able to migrate across areas deemed completely inhospitable to life, paving the way for the rise of these iconic creatures.

A team of researchers from the University of Birmingham and University of Bristol has used a new method of geographical analysis to infer how these ancestral reptiles, known as archosauromorphs, dispersed following one of the most impactful climate events in Earth’s history – the end-Permian mass extinction. This event saw more than half of land-based animals and 81% of marine life die.

The first archosauromorphs were previously believed to only survive in certain parts of the globe due to extreme heat across the tropics, viewed by many paleontologists as a dead zone. However, by developing a new modelling technique based on landscape reconstructions and evolutionary trees, the team has discovered clues about how these reptiles moved around the world during the Triassic period.

The archosauromorphs that survived the extinction event rose to prominence in Earth’s ecosystems in the Triassic, leading to the evolution of dinosaurs. The team now suggests that their later success was in part due to their ability to migrate up to 10,000 miles across the tropical dead zone to access new ecosystems.

Dr Joseph Flannery-Sutherland from the University of Birmingham and corresponding author of the study said: “Amid the worst climatic event in Earth’s history, where more species died than at any period since, life still survived. We know that archosauromorphs as a group managed to come out of this event and over the Triassic period became one of the main players in shaping life thereafter.”

The researchers’ findings have significant implications for our understanding of how life on Earth evolved and adapted to changing environments. As Professor Michael Benton from the University of Bristol, senior author of the study, notes: “The evolution of life has been controlled at times by the environment, but it is difficult to integrate our limited and uncertain knowledge about the ancient landscape with our limited and uncertain knowledge about the ecology of extinct organisms.”

By combining fossils with reconstructed maps of the ancient world in the context of evolutionary trees, the researchers have provided a way of overcoming these challenges. Their work offers a new perspective on the remarkable story of how dinosaurs evolved to thrive in a world previously thought to be inhospitable to life.

Unveiling the Dinosaur’s Menu: A Fossilized Time Capsule Reveals the Sauropod’s Diet 100 Million Years Ago

A groundbreaking study published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology has shed light on the diet of one of the most fascinating creatures to have ever walked the Earth – the sauropod dinosaur. The research, led by Stephen Poropat of Curtin University, reveals that these gentle giants were herbivores and had a unique digestive system that relied heavily on gut microbes for digestion.

The study’s findings are based on an extraordinary discovery made in 2017 at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History. During an excavation of a sauropod skeleton from the mid-Cretaceous period, researchers stumbled upon a well-preserved cololite – a fossilized rock layer containing the dinosaur’s gut contents.

The analysis of the plant fossils within the cololite has confirmed several long-standing hypotheses about the sauropod diet. The research team found that these dinosaurs likely engaged in minimal oral processing of their food and instead relied on fermentation and their gut microbiota for digestion.

The variety of plants present in the cololite suggests that sauropods were indiscriminate bulk feeders, eating a range of foliage from conifers to leaves from flowering plants. This is supported by the presence of chemical biomarkers from both angiosperms and gymnosperms, indicating that at least some sauropods were not selective feeders.

The researchers’ findings have significant implications for our understanding of these massive herbivores and their role in ancient ecosystems. The study suggests that sauropods had successfully adapted to eat flowering plants within 40 million years of the first evidence of their presence in the fossil record.

In addition, the research team found evidence of small shoots, bracts, and seed pods in the cololite, implying that subadult Diamantinasaurus targeted new growth portions of conifers and seed ferns. This strategy of indiscriminate bulk feeding seems to have served sauropods well for 130 million years and might have enabled their success and longevity as a clade.

While this research has shed new light on the diet of sauropod dinosaurs, there are still limitations to consider. The study’s primary limitation is that the sauropod gut contents described constitute a single data point, which may not be representative of typical or adult sauropods’ diets.

This research was supported by funding from the Australian Research Council and has significant implications for our understanding of these fascinating creatures and their role in ancient ecosystems.

For over 160 million years, a specific group of fungi has been quietly colonizing trees, leaving behind a distinctive blue-stain discoloration on their hosts. Known as blue-stain fungi, these organisms have long fascinated scientists, but until recently, our knowledge of them was limited to molecular phylogenetic analyses suggesting an ancient origin dating back to the Late Paleozoic or early Mesozoic.

That changed in 2022 when a research team led by Dr. Ning Tian from Shenyang Normal University in China discovered the first credible fossil record of blue-stain fungi from the Cretaceous period, aged approximately 80 million years. Now, this same team has found an even more significant find: well-preserved fossil fungal hyphae preserved within a Jurassic petrified wood from northeastern China, dated 160 million years ago.

Microscopic examination reveals that these ancient hyphae are dark in color, indicative of pigmentation – a hallmark characteristic of contemporary blue-stain fungi. What’s particularly intriguing is the formation of penetration pegs, a specialized structure allowing the hyphae to pierce through the wood cell wall with ease. This distinctive feature confirms that the fossil fungus belongs to the blue-stain fungal group.

Unlike their wood-decay counterparts, which degrade wood cell walls through enzymatic secretion, blue-stain fungi lack this enzymatic capacity. Instead, their hyphae mechanically breach wood cell walls via penetration pegs – a unique adaptation allowing them to thrive in this environment.

The discovery of Jurassic blue-stain fungi represents the second report of this fungal group and pushes back the earliest known fossil record by approximately 80 million years. This finding provides crucial evidence for understanding the origin and early evolution of blue-stain fungi, as well as their ecological relationships with plants and insects during the Jurassic period.

As researchers continue to explore these ancient fossils, they may uncover fresh insights into the complexities of this ecosystem – one where trees, fungi, and insects coexisted in a delicate balance, shaping the course of our planet’s history.