Although the weeks following human birth are critical for development and survival, a new study examines fossils from a baby titanosaur and suggests a harsh, lonely childhood.
A team of Macalester College researchers examined an infant of the titanosaur species Rapetosaurus krausei, some of the largest animals even known to walk the Earth, and revealed that the vents that followed birth are far from the close familial bonding often seen in humans.
"For sauropods, it doesn't appear that they were very good parents - at least after their babies hatched," said Kristina Rogers, a researcher from Macalester College who led the study.
When Rapetosaurus krausei hatched, its size was very small compared to its parents. Using the hatching line - the shift in bone growth that indicates when a baby left its egg - Rogers and her team were able to determine that the 70-million-year-old specimen weighed just 7.5 pounds at birth, which is lighter than most domestic cats.
The baby died approximately 39 to 77 days following birth, likely from starvation, although at the time of death it had still gained around 80 pounds. Although nothing compared to the adult weights, which typically range in the thousands, it still reveals an impressive growth in such a short period of time.
Even more impressive are the bone sizes - although babies were tiny in size, their bones were proportional to adult bones, something common in animals that are left to fend for themselves shortly after birth. Contrary to cats, dogs and humans - where babies are largely helpless - R krausei babies are born with bodies that are designed to let them fight, flee and find food all on their own.
Although it sounds harsh, having a stimulated early development is actually a good evolutionary strategy.
"Precocial young can avoid predation on their own, and there is a much smaller chance of the entire brood succumbing to predation at once," Rogers said.
Despite this benefit for the brood as a whole, things didn't work out for the baby in the current study, which died of starvation, most likely from the severe drought that occurred during the baby's time period in the Madagascar region where the bones were found
The findings were published in the April 22 issue of Science.
