Prereptile Could Be Earliest To Walk Upright, 260 Mln Years Ago

But the forelimb of Bunostegos is “seemingly directed underneath its body…” Turner said that the elements and features within the forelimb bones won’t permit a sprawling posture, and it is unique.

As per researchers, “sprawling” posture may clarify the way in which legs of lizards emerge from their our bodies i.e. horizontally within the limb’s higher half, and upright from the joint right down to the bottom. Presently, scientists have reached the conclusion that Bunostegos stood on all the fours with their bulky body raised from the ground, unlike other animals that roamed Pangea, the supercontinent in those days. Bunostegos belonged to the Pareiasaurs family, which were large, herbivorous reptiles.

Seeing an animal walk on all four legs may not even strike you as odd , but it wasn’t always this way for the creatures of the Earth.

“Imagine a cow-sized, plant-eating reptile with a knobby skull and bony armor down its back”, said Royal Ontario Museum’s Linda Tsuji, the study’s co-author who was in the midst of the action when the dust settle and Buno’s bones emerged in Niger back in 2003.

Analysis of fossils from the Bunostegos akokanensis, which were discovered in Niger between 2003 and 2006, show that its forelimbs were uniquely designed to allow the animal to stand upright in the manner of a cow.

Researchers based their conclusion on four major findings. The creatures lived in an age when all of the world’s continents were still joined as one, Pangaea. It would only swing in a back and forth direction like a human knee, she said. Finally, the ulna is longer than the humerus – a trait which is common in non-sprawlers. After some time, plants turned out to be more dry season safe, and a few reptiles adjusted by turning out to be all the more warm-blooded. In fact, this posture may have been necessary for its survival.

The significance of such an early instance of the upright posture is that Bunostegos dates very far again on the evolutionary tree, pushing again the clock on when this posture exhibits up in evolution.

“Posture, from sprawling to upright, is not black or white, but instead is a gradient of forms”, Turner explained in a statement. There are many complexities about the evolution of posture and locomotion many scientists are working to better understand every day. Bunostegos have an unexpected anatomy which is illuminating and tells us that there is so much that we still need to learn.