A group of scientists have worked on the theory how large species like sauropods, a family of dinosaurs that walked the earth millions of years ago, may not have had to fight for food.
The researchers focused on the skull and jaws of sauropods, using a variety of biomechanical techniques to investigate how they functioned and what this would mean for sauropod ecology.
Through CT scan, a digitally constructed skull and neck of the two, Diplodocus and Camarasaurus showed that neither of them could chew, Camarasaurus had a robust skull and strong bite, which would have allowed it to feed on tough leaves and branches. Meanwhile, the weaker bite and more delicate skull of Diplodocus would have restricted it to softer foods like ferns.
However, Diplodocus would have used its strong neck muscles to help it detach plant material through movements of the head. This indicated differences in diet between the two dinosaurs, which would have allowed them to coexist.
The biomechanical measurements from other sauropod species indicate functional disparities in their skulls and jaws and found that other Morrison Formation sauropods were also highly varied in feeding adaptations, suggesting different diets.
Professor Emily Rayfield of the University of Bristol said that modern animal communities had differences in their diet termed as 'dietary niche partitioning' that allow multiple similar species to coexist by reducing competition for food.
This is the first study to provide strong, numerical, biomechanical evidence for its presence in this fossil community and it also helps to shed light on lineages that showed the parallel evolution of traits suggesting that they were more specialized in their feeding habits.
