Title: Neurosensory and Sinus Evolution as Tyrannosauroid Dinosaurs Developed Giant Size: Insight from the Endocranial Anatomy of Bistahieversor sealeyi

Journal Article · · The Anatomical Record
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.24374 · OSTI ID:1818103
 [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [1];  [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [5]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [4]
  1. Univ. of Edinburgh, Scotland (United Kingdom)
  2. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
  3. Carthage College, Kenosha, WI (United States)
  4. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  5. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Technical Univ. of Munich (Germany)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Tyrannosaurus rex and other tyrannosaurid dinosaurs were apex predators during the latest Cretaceous, which combined giant size and advanced neurosensory systems. Computed tomography (CT) data have shown that tyrannosaurids had a trademark system of a large brain, large olfactory bulbs, elongate cochlear ducts, and expansive endocranial sinuses surrounding the brain and sense organs. Older, smaller tyrannosauroid relatives of tyrannosaurids developed some, but not all, of these features, raising the hypothesis that tyrannosaurid-style brains evolved before the enlarged tyrannosaurid-style sinuses, which might have developed only with large body size. This has been difficult to test, however, because little is known about the brains and sinuses of the first large-bodied tyrannosauroids, which evolved prior to Tyrannosauridae. Here we present the first CT data for one of these species, Bistahieversor sealeyi from New Mexico. Bistahieversor had a nearly identical brain and sinus system as tyrannosaurids like Tyrannosaurus, including a large brain, large olfactory bulbs, reduced cerebral hemispheres, and optic lobes, a small tab-like flocculus, long and straight cochlear ducts, and voluminous sinuses that include a supraocciptal recess, subcondyar sinus, and an anterior tympanic recess that exits the braincase via a prootic fossa. When characters are plotted onto tyrannosauroid phylogeny, there is a two-stage sequence in which features of the tyrannosaurid-style brain evolved first (in smaller, nontyrannosaurid species like Timurlengia), followed by features of the tyrannosaurid-style sinuses (in the first large-bodied nontyrannosaurid tyrannosauroids like Bistahieversor). This suggests that the signature tyrannosaurid sinus system evolved in concert with large size, whereas the brain did not.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
European Commission (EC); European Research Council (ERC); Leverhulme Trust; Royal Society; USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
Grant/Contract Number:
89233218CNA000001; AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1818103
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-19-32710
Journal Information:
The Anatomical Record, Journal Name: The Anatomical Record Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 303; ISSN 1932-8486
Publisher:
WileyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Bistahieversor sealeyi
CT scanning
Tyrannosaurus rex
dinosaur
neuroanatomy
sensory evolution
tyrannosaur