#sauropodomorphs

Many dinosaurs (and birds) have way more efficient lungs, here is how they worked:

In humans, the air stops in your lungs between your inhale and exhale. After the gas exchange happens, there is no 'fresh' oxygenated in your system. However, in animals with special air sacks, the air passes through constantly, traveling in a loop.

Air would likely travel directly to the rear (blue) sac first, and the next exhalation will push it forward into the actual "lung" part in red. Spent air is then pulled into the front sacs (green) and exhaled. There are two breaths in motion at any time, and there is always oxygenated air in play. They can get away with this because gas exchange happens in the ducts the air travels through rather than needing to stop in the alveoli.

Due to this advantage, modern birds like an ostrich can maintain their highest speeds for up to half an hour (compared to the few seconds that mammals are getting) and dinosaurs that had this system were probably way better at running than older reconstructions gave them credit for. Sauropods in particular were enabled to be that big in part due to this system (also the diverticula/air sacs were lighter than other tissues helping with the weight problem), and birds can fly at higher altitudes because of better lung efficiently.

But how would one even know if a dinosaur was built like this, have you seen dinosaur lungs? Paleontologists can study the lungs based on the marks left where they attached to surrounding bones, since the vertebra had signs of forming a lung "ceiling" that lines up with modern birds. This kept the lungs stationary while the front and back sacs did the hard work, something that we mammals do not have the privilege of.

We still don't know how similar the bird and sauropod systems were tho. The current reconstructions are modeled after birds, but the dinosaurs could have been breathing way better than any living animal for all we know. However, I would still win in a fight because all the sauropods are now dead and no longer breathing.

Sources: https://svpow.com/2024/09/12/if-i-could-dissect-a-sauropod/

https://www.science.org/content/article/superlungs-gave-dinosaurs-energy-run-and-fight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuMHfWSyoGI

With a name meaning “giant thunderclap at dawn” in Sesotho, Ledumahadi mafube is one of the first sauropodomorphs known to become a quadrupedal giant. Living in Early Jurassic South Africa, it is known from fragmentary remains, but we can infer its appearance based on its relatives, though it was significantly larger than them. Ledumahadi is estimated to have weighed around 12 tonnes (13 short tons), similar in body mass to Diplodocus, though its neck and tail were likely shorter. At a time when most dinosaurs were small, scampering things, Ledumahadi would have been the largest animal around, and it hinted at what would someday be in store for this clade of giants.

Ledumahadi lived in the Elliot Formation, which would have been a semi-arid landscape with meandering rivers. The most common dinosaur here was the smaller, bipedal sauropodomorph Massospondylus. Other sauropodomorphs Ledumahadi would have lived alongside include Blikanasaurus, Aardonyx, Antetonitrus, and Pulanesaura. It would have also come across the basal ornithischians Heterodontosaurus, Abrictosaurus, Lycorhinus, and Lesothosaurus. Small pseudosuchians like Sphenosuchus, Litargosuchus, and Orthosuchus would have prowled through the underbrush or swam through the rivers. Ledumahadi, or at least its young, could have been preyed on by the neotheropod Dracovenator.

The Late Triassic Saturnalia tupiniquim was one of the earliest dinosaurs. While around 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) long and weighing between 4 and 11 kilograms (8.8 and 24.3 lb), Saturnalia was in fact an early sauropodomorph, ancestral to the long-necked giants who would one day tower over all other dinosaurs. Unlike its descendants, it was a carnivore or omnivore, eating arthropods or small vertebrates. Its long body and neck would have allowed it to dart its head rapidly after fast, elusive prey.

Living in Brazil’s Alemoa Member of the Santa Maria Formation, Saturnalia would have lived in a coastal environment. It could have lived alongside other early archosaurs like fellow sauropodomorphs Buriolestes, Nhandumirim, and Pampadromaeus, the lagerpetids Ixalerpeton and Venetoraptor, and the silesaur Amanasaurus, as well as other archosauromorphs like the proterochampsids Cerritosaurus and Proterochampsa. It would have also lived alongside a variety of synapsids like the cynodonts Exaeretodon, Alemoatherium, Charruodon, Gomphodontosuchus, Prozostrodon, and Therioherpeton. Saturnalia could have been hunted by the pseudosuchians Rauisuchus and Dynamosuchus and the herrerasaurids Gnathovorax and Staurikosaurus.

Patreon request for rome.and.stuff (Instagram) Plateosaurus trossingensis! (that I went a liiiittle overboard with the markings on)

Plateosaurus trossingensis is the type species of the Plateosaurids, a family of early Sauropodomorphs that existed long before the titanic long-necked sauropods of the Jurassic and Cretaceous. The Plateosaurids represented a time of transitioning for Sauropodomorphs, going from small bipeds scampering through the underbrush to lumbering giants with necks built to reach up to the tastiest leaves. However, Plateosaurus could not pronate its hands, making it incapable of walking quadrupedally. Discovered in 1834, it was the fifth named non-avian dinosaur genus still considered valid today, and is now one of the best known to science, with over 100 individuals found!

Unusual for dinosaurs, Plateosaurus trossingensis didn’t seem to have a constant max adult size. Individuals would grow rapidly and continue growing after sexual maturity, slowing down over time. Their growth was determinate, meaning they would eventually stop growing at a point, however, this point seemed to vary wildly between individuals. Adult specimens have ranged between 4.8 and 10 metres (16 and 33 ft) long and weighed between 600 and 4,000 kilograms (1,300 and 8,800 lb). While I have depicted a fairly average individual here, others have been found more than twice its size!

(Size chart by Slate Weasel)

Plateosaurus trossingensis lived in the Late Triassic of Central Europe. Unfortunately though, while P. trossingensis was apparently quite common in the Trossingen Formation, very little contemporary dinosaurs have been found there. Partial remains from other prosauropods include that of Tuebingosaurus, Gresslyosaurus, Ruehleia, and the lighter bodied Plateosaurus longiceps. Indeterminate coelophysoid remains also exist, but the most complete carnivore found here is Liliensternus, which could have preyed on smaller Plateosauruses. Other animals from this formation include turtles and temnospondyl amphibians, so this was a moist environment. It is suggested that the reason we tend to find more Plateosauruses here than other species is that their size and weight would have caused them to get mired in mud more easily, as opposed to the smaller species in the formation.