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Dinosaur burrows hold clues to survival strategies

29 July 2009

Illustration of dinosaur burrow.
An artist's interpretation of the burrow.

Internationally-renowned paleontologist and Monash Honorary Research Associate Dr Anthony Martin of the School of Geosciences, has found evidence of a dinosaur burrow along the coast of Victoria that helps explain how dinosaurs protected themselves from climate extremes during the Cretaceous period - the final era for dinosaurs before their extinction.

Dr Martin said the burrows shed more light on dinosaur behaviour and suggested that dinosaurs of different species, on different continents, may have engaged in similar living habits.

"We knew that some dinosaurs may have cared for their young in burrows but the latest discovery can also suggest that dinosaurs may have used the burrows to shelter from the cooling and warming effects of the Cretaceous Period - a time of great climate transformation," Dr Martin said.

The burrow, measuring two metres in length and 30 centimetres across, spirals down to a large chamber and is located in an outcrop a few kilometres from Dinosaur Cove - the site of popular dinosaur digs led in the past by Monash and Museum Victoria palaeontologists Professor Pat Vickers-Rich and Tom Rich.

Professor Rich said the discovery provided new insights into an ever-growing body of knowledge.

"I will be most interested to find which and how many species used this survival technique as we have been aware for some time that one of our dinosaurs, Timimus hermani, has lines of arrested growth (LAGs) in its bones, suggesting a period of downtime when bones did not grow," Professor Vickers-Rich said.

"Animals that have those sorts of structures are known to hibernate or aestivate.

"Another of our dinosaurs, the Leaellynasaura, doesn't have these LAGs and perhaps remained active all year long. They may have not needed to burrow or maybe used burrows as temporary dens for comfort."

Dr Anthony Martin is currently researching and lecturing at Emory University in the US.