Adorable sheep size dinosaurs probably developed their dainty neck bikes to attract mates or show their dominance.
Protoceratops – a dinosaur that looked a bit like a mini-Triceratops without horns – had elongated and divergent necks. Paleontologists debated what it was used for: defense? Temperature control? Or, like modern birds with colorful tail feathers, dinosaurs have evolved the frills to show their fitness to potential mates and competitors, a process of sexual selection. In sexual selection, an animal with a certain trait that appeals to potential mates or allows them to reproduce differently will be passed on to the next generation and become more common.
It is difficult to prove sexual selection directly because it is impossible to know whether a dinosaur with a larger, brighter frill actually achieved more success with mating and offspring. But researchers from the Natural History Museum in London and Queen Mary University in London have turned to clues about the growth and variation of the freckles to see if they match the patterns of sexually selected traits in animals seen today.
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The researchers captured dozens to hundreds of photos of 65 skulls from each other Protoceratops species, using software to create 3D models of the skulls. Of these, 30 were complete digital reconstructions. The skulls come from dinosaurs ranging from a day old to full adulthood, so the scientists were able to compare the growth rates of the freckles with those of other parts of the skull.
The researchers found that evolutionary change in the fur coats was fairly independent of evolutionary change in the rest of the skull, a sign that sexual selection may be at work rather than another evolutionary pressure.
Frills also have a growth pattern called allometry, which is common in sexually selected traits. In allometry, a particular body part grows faster and larger than other body parts on the animal; a modern example is the antlers on a goat.
The frills also showed great variation, another feature of sexual selection. However, they did not show sexual dimorphism or major differences between men and women. Many sexually selected traits are dimorphic, but not all, co-author Andrew Knapp, a postdoctoral researcher at the museum, said in a statement.
“Although there are quite a few examples in live animals, where females usually select males based on the size of their tail feathers or calls, it is often overlooked that males do the same with females,” Knapp said. “In a bird species known as the crested bird, males and females have an impressive plume of feathers curling on top of their heads, which is used by each sex to indicate their health. While the plume of feathers is a sexually selected trait, it did not lead to sexual dimorphism. ‘
Male and female frills can differ in ways not preserved in the fossil record, Knapp added. Maybe male frills were more colorful, for example. Extending 3D scanning research to other stuffed dinosaurs could help bolster the idea that sexual selection explains it evolution of the frills, the researchers concluded in their study published in the journal on Wednesday (February 3) Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Originally published on Live Science.