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Paleontologists have found that muscle-scarred fossil leg bones of one of the closest cousins of dinosaurs that lived approximately 240-million-years ago can shine new light on a large unknown: how early dinosaurs grew from hatchlings to adults. Their research shows that dinosaurs and their close relatives had much more variation in growth patterns than ever expected, and this variation does not appear to be related to differences between males and females.
Shown here: A partial skeleton of an Asilisaurus kongwe, a dinosaur cousin that lived roughly 10 million years earlier than the oldest known dinosaurs.Image credit: Jim Stroup/Virginia Tech
