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While many dinosaur babies looked wildly different from their parents, German researchers found that some species actually looked like small copies of the adults.
Paleontologists from the University of Bonn made the discovery while examining the skeleton of a young Plateosaurus. The almost complete skeleton, nicknamed “Fabian”, was found in 2015 in Switzerland (pictured above).
The researchers “surprisingly” found that the young specimen’s physical characteristics and body proportions were “remarkably consistent” with adult Plateosaurus, according to the study in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.
“The fact that young Plateosaurus were already so similar to adults is all the more surprising because they were ten times heavier,” Jens Lallensack, a paleontologist who took part in the study, told DPA news agency.
Read more: Fossils show that feathered dinosaurs had a lousy life
Long-necked Plateosaurus could grow to weigh up to 4,000 kilograms
Other baby dinosaurs, on the other hand, looked very different from their adult versions.
The researchers found that young Mussaurus pups, related to Plateosaurus, emerged walking on all fours, although the adults only moved on two, DPA reported.
From mini to massive
The research team determined that “Fabian” was 2.3 meters (7.5 feet) long and weighed between 40 and 60 kilograms (88 to 132 pounds).
Comparing “Fabian” with adult fossils, they found numerous anatomical similarities, with only a few exceptions.
Read more: The discovery of fossils indicates “the origin of the modern world” after the extinction of the dinosaurs
“The hand and neck of young people are perhaps a little longer – the arm bones a little shorter and thinner,” Darius Nau, a researcher at the University of Bonn’s Institute of Geoscience, told DPA.
The long-necked, plant-eating Plateosaurus lived about 220 million years ago in northern and central Europe and Greenland. The adults have grown to a length of between 4.8 and 10 meters and weigh up to 4,000 kilograms.
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