Intact skull helps study of big, long necked dinos

Scientists announced the discovery of the skull as well as neck bones of a newly identified dinosaur called Sarmientosaurus that roamed Patagonia 95 million years ago. CT scans of the skull revealed its brain structure and provided close understanding of its hearing, sight and feeding behaviour. Sarmientosaurus, about 40-50 feet long and 8-12 tons, belonged to a group called titanosaurs, plant-eating dinosaurs known for long necks, long tails and huge bodies. Of the 60 known titanosaur species, only four, including Sarmientosaurus, have been found with complete skulls. 

“The head is key to understanding an animal’s biology. It’s home to the brain, sense organs, jaws and teeth - food-gathering mechanisms - and more,” said palaeontologist Matt Lamanna of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. Anatomists said the brain of a Sarmientosaurus was about the size of a lime yet its body weighed as much as two or three elephants.

Its skull provided the best information on brain structure for any sauropod, Ohio University anatomist Lawrence Witmer said. Its hearing organ, the cochlear duct, was long, indicating good hearing of low-frequency sounds transmitted over long distances, to others in the herd when they were out of sight, Witmer said.