ArticleBiology letters2018
Bone histological correlates for air sacs and their implications for understanding the origin of the dinosaurian respiratory system.
Article in Biology letters, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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15 citing papers in PubMed, 42 citations in OpenAlex.
- Latest Cretaceous megaraptorid theropod dinosaur sheds light on megaraptoran evolution and palaeobiology.Nature communications · 2025Article
- When the lung invades: a review of avian postcranial skeletal pneumaticity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- The influence of soft tissue volume on estimates of skeletal pneumaticity: implications for fossil archosaurs.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Variation in air sac morphology and postcranial skeletal pneumatization patterns in the African grey parrot.Journal of anatomy · 2025Article
- Evidence for the Loss of Pneumatization and Pneumosteal Tissues in Secondarily Aquatic Archosaurs.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- A computed tomography-based survey of paramedullary diverticula in extant Aves.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2023Review
- The absence of an invasive air sac system in the earliest dinosaurs suggests multiple origins of vertebral pneumaticity.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Osteohistology of the hyperelongate hemispinous processes of Amargasaurus cazaui (Dinosauria: Sauropoda): Implications for soft tissue reconstruction and functional significance.Journal of anatomy · 2022Article
- Exquisite air sac histological traces in a hyperpneumatized nanoid sauropod dinosaur from South America.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Vertebral pneumaticity is correlated with serial variation in vertebral shape in storks.Journal of anatomy · 2021Article
- Histology and pneumaticity of Aoniraptor libertatem (Dinosauria, Theropoda), an enigmatic mid-sized megaraptoran from Patagonia.Journal of anatomy · 2020Article
- Systemic distribution of medullary bone in the avian skeleton: ground truthing criteria for the identification of reproductive tissues in extinct Avemetatarsalia.BMC evolutionary biology · 2019Article
- Article
- Vertebral morphometrics and lung structure in non-avian dinosaurs.Royal Society open science · 2018Article
- Bone histological correlates for air sacs and their implications for understanding the origin of the dinosaurian respiratory system.Biology letters · 2018Article
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3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Air sacs are an important component of the avian respiratory system, and corresponding structures also were crucial for the evolution of sauropod dinosaur gigantism. Inferring the presence of air sacs in fossils so far is restricted to bones preserving internal pneumatic cavities and foramina as osteological correlates. We here present bone histological correlates for air sacs as a new potential identification tool for these elements of the respiratory system. The analysis of several avian and non-avian dinosaur samples revealed delicate fibres in secondary trabecular and secondary endosteal bone that in the former case (birds) is known or in the latter (non-avian dinosaurs) assumed to have been in contact with air sacs, respectively. The bone histology of this 'pneumosteal tissue' is markedly different from those regions where muscles attached presenting classical Sharpey's fibres. The pneumatized bones of several non-dinosaurian taxa do not exhibit the characteristics of this 'pneumosteum'. Our new histology-based approach thus can be instrumental in reconstructing the origin of air sacs among dinosaurs and hence for our understanding of this remarkable evolutionary novelty of the respiratory system.
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