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Skulls reveal secrets of giant plant eater - PHOTOS

26 February 2010 [15:43] - TODAY.AZ
Abydosaurus was a type of sauropod, a group of huge plant-eating dinosaurs which had light skulls because their head was at the end of a long neck.
Complete dinosaur skulls are rare so researchers were thrilled when they found four Abydosaurus skulls - including two intact - in a quarry at the Dinosaur National Monument in eastern Utah in America.

"Their heads are built lighter than mammal skulls because they sit way out at the end of very long necks," said Dr Brooks Britt, a palaeontologist who worked on the project.

"Instead of thick bones fused together, sauropod skulls are made of thin bones bound together by soft tissue. Usually it falls apart quickly after death and disintegrates."

Most of what scientists know about sauropods is from the neck down but the newly-discovered skulls provide new clues about how the largest land animals to roam the Earth ate their food.

Dr Britt said: "They didn't chew their food; they just grabbed it and swallowed it. The skulls are only one two-hundredth of total body volume and don't have an elaborate chewing system."

is thought to have lived 105 million years ago as crystals of the mineral zircon within the surrounding rock have been dated to that period.

Bone analysis suggests Brachiosaurus, which grew to around 25 metres long and lived 45 million years earlier than Abydosaurus, is thought to have been its closest relative.

Dr Britt said the skulls were from juveniles which were estimated to be around 25 feet (7.6 metres) long but other bones, including vertebrae, suggest the mature Abydosaurus were "substantially larger".

/Sky News/

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