Paleohistology and Lifestyle Inferences of a Dyrosaurid (Archosauria: Crocodylomorpha) from Paraíba Basin (Northeastern Brazil)

Abstract

Among the few vertebrates that survived the mass extinction event documented at the Cretaceous–Paleocene boundary are dyrosaurid crocodylomorphs. Surprisingly, there is little information regarding the bone histology of dyrosaurids, despite their relatively common occurrence in the fossil record, and the potential to gain insight about their biology and lifestyle. We provide the first description of the long bone histology of the dyrosaurids. Specimens were collected from the Maria Farinha Formation, in the Paraíba Basin of northeast Brazil. Thin sections of a right femur and left tibia were made. In the left tibia, the cortex consists of lamellar-zonal bone with five lines of arrested growth (LAGs), spaced ∼300 µm apart. The tibia contains a small to medium-sized organized vascular network of both simple vascular canals and primary osteons that decrease in density periostially. The femur exhibits a similar histological pattern overall but has double-LAGs, and an EFS layer (the latter is rare in living crocodylians). Secondary osteons occur in the deep cortex near and inside the spongiosa as a result of remodeling in both bones. This tissue pattern is fairly common among slow-growing animals. These specimens were a sub-adult and a senescent. Patterns in the distribution of bone consistent with osteosclerosis suggest that these animals probably hada fast-swimming ecology. Although these results are consistent with the histology in anatomically convergent taxa, it will be necessary to make additional sections from the mid-diaphysis in order to assign their ecology.