Quantitative assessment of the vertebral pneumaticity in an anhanguerid pterosaur using micro-CT scanning
Buchmann, Richard (Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Departamento de Zoologia. Laboratório de Mastozoologia)
Holgado, Borja (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
Sobral, Gabriela (Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde in Stuttgart)
dos Santos Avilla, Leonardo (Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Departamento de Zoologia. Laboratório de Mastozoologia)
Rodrigues, Taissa (Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (Brazil). Departamento de Ciências Biológicas. Laboratório de Paleontologia)

Data:	2021
Resum:	Research on the postcranial skeletal pneumaticity in pterosaurs is common in the literature, but most studies present only qualitative assessments. When quantitative, they are done on isolated bones. Here, we estimate the Air Space Proportion (ASP) obtained from micro-CT scans of the sequence from the sixth cervical to the fourth dorsal vertebra of an anhanguerine pterosaur to understand how pneumaticity is distributed in these bones. Pneumatisation of the vertebrae varied between 68 and 72% of their total volume. The neural arch showed higher ASP in all vertebrae. Anhanguerine vertebral ASP was generally higher than in sauropod vertebrae but lower than in most extant birds. The ASP observed here is lower than that calculated for the appendicular skeleton of other anhanguerian pterosaurs, indicating the potential existence of variation between axial and appendicular pneumatisation. The results point to a pattern in the distribution of the air space, which shows an increase in the area occupied by the trabecular bone in the craniocaudal direction of the vertebral series and, in each vertebra, an increase of the thickness of the trabeculae in the zygapophyses. This indicates that the distribution of pneumatic diverticula in anhanguerine vertebrae may not be associated with stochastic patterns.
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Matèria:	Anatomy ; Evolution ; Palaeontology ; Zoology
Publicat a:	Scientific reports, Vol. 11 (September 2021) , art. 18718, ISSN 2045-2322

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-97856-6
PMID: 34548510

10 p, 1.6 MB

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