Baby Titanosaur's Fossil Shows It Suffered A 'Harsh, Lonely Childhood'

The baby titanosaur, whose fossil remains has been examined by scientists, suggests that it did not have much of a happy childhood, but a harsh, lonely one.

A team of Macalester College researchers found the remains of the titanosaur species Rapetosaurus krausei, which are a few of the biggest animals on earth. They found that the vents of the species after birth are not indicative of familial bonding that is characteristic of human relationships.

"For sauropods, it doesn't appear that they were very good parents - at least after their babies hatched," said Kristina Rogers, a researcher from Macalester College, leader of the study.

After the Rapetosaurus krausei hatched, it was too small compared to the size of its parents. The hatching line that showed the "shift in bone growth" pointing to when the baby left its egg helped Rogers and her team to identify that the 70-million-year-old specimen weighed just 7.5 pounds at birth----less than the weight of even some domestic cats.

Just 39 to 77 days after birth, the baby died, probably due to starvation, even though it gained about 80 pounds at the time of death---quite a remarkable growth in weight in such a short time.

Researchers noticed that the baby's bones were proportional to the adult bones. This is a phenomenon that has been noticed in animals in which offspring are left to fend for themselves just after they are born. Unlike the babies of cats, dogs and humans, in which babies are helpless, R krausei babies have strong, toned bodies that can fight, flee and forage for food.

Having such strong bodies is actually a beneficial "evolutionary strategy" according to scientists.

"Precocial young can avoid predation on their own, and there is a much smaller chance of the entire brood succumbing to predation at once," Rogers said.

However, the fossils of the baby that were found indicate that it had died of starvation due to the severe drought in the Madagascar region at that time.

The findings were published in the April 22 issue of Science.