Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany.
Institut für Biologie, Universität Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany.
PLoS One. 2024 Jul 31;19(7):e0306819. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0306819. eCollection 2024.
Paleopathology, the study of diseases and injuries from the fossil record, allows for a unique view into the life of prehistoric animals. Pathologies have nowadays been described in nearly all groups of fossil vertebrates, especially dinosaurs. Despite the large number of skeletons, pathologies had never been reported in the sauropodomorph Plateosaurus trossingensis. Here we describe the first pathologies of Plateosaurus using two individuals with pathologies in the chevrons of the tail, from the Upper Triassic of Trossingen, SW Germany. The two specimens each contain three consecutive pathological chevrons. Our results show that the pathologies were caused by external trauma in one individual and potentially tendinous trauma in the other. Healing of the lesions allowed survival of both animals. Using additional pathological specimens found in other collections and from multiple localities, we observe that 14.8% of all individuals of Plateosaurus contain pathologies within their chevrons, suggesting it was a vulnerable bone.
古病理学是研究化石记录中疾病和损伤的学科，它使我们能够从独特的视角了解史前动物的生活。如今，几乎所有的化石脊椎动物群，尤其是恐龙，都已经描述过病理学。尽管有大量的骨骼，但在蜥脚形亚目恐龙的板龙中从未报道过病理学。在这里，我们使用来自德国西南部特罗辛根上三叠统的两个具有尾部肋骨病理学的个体，描述了板龙的第一个病理学。这两个标本都包含三个连续的病理性肋骨。我们的结果表明，一个个体的病理学是由外部创伤引起的，而另一个个体则可能是肌腱创伤引起的。病变的愈合使这两个动物得以存活。通过在其他收藏和多个地点发现的额外的病理学标本，我们观察到板龙的所有个体中有 14.8%的个体在其肋骨中存在病理学，这表明肋骨是一个脆弱的骨骼。
