Friday, November 13, 2009

Matt Bonnan discusses Aardonyx

This video is a short clip of Dr. Matt Bonnan of Wester Illinois University discussing Aardonyx, his research interest, and how he became involved with the project, which was funded by the National Geographic Society. One of Dr. Bonnan's research interest involves the morphology and mechanics of sauropod dinosaur forelimbs. He explains how Aardonyx had the adaptation of interlocking forearm bones that would reinforce the forelimb and prevent the weight-bearing hand from twisting. Since the earliest dinosaurs were bipeds (walking on their hindlimbs), it is interesting to Dr. Bonnan (and others) that even during the early Jurassic sauropods were reversing this trend, and becoming quadrupeds (walking on all fours) to better distribute their weight. This is why the interlocking forearm is very important.



You can read more about Dr. Bonnan's work on this project here. Thanks to Ville of Dots in Deep Time for the heads up on this video.

I also found this short video with Dr. Adam Yates (of the blog Dracovenator), who is the first author on the paper*, discussing Aardonyx.


*Yates, A. M., Bonnan, M. F., Neveling, J., Chinsamy, A. and Blackbeard, M. G. 2009. A new transitional sauropodomorph dinosaur from the Early Jurassic of South Africa and the evolution of sauropod feeding and quadrupedalism. Proc. R. Soc. B doi:10.1098/rspb.2009.1440

© ReBecca K. Hunt-Foster

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