To be or not to be heavier: The role of dermal bones in the buoyancy of the Late Triassic temnospondyl amphibian Metoposaurus krasiejowensis

Abstract

Stereospondyli are a clade of large aquatic temnospondyls known to have evolved a large dermal pectoral girdle. Among the Stereospondyli, metoposaurids in particular possess large interclavicles and clavicles relative to the rest of the postcranial skeleton. Because of the large size of these dermal bones, it was first proposed that they served as ballast during hydrostatic buoyancy control which assisted metoposaurids to live a bottom-dwelling mode of life. However, a large bone need not necessarily be heavy, for which determining the bone compactness becomes crucial for understanding any such adaptation in these dermal bones. Previous studies on the evolution of bone adaptations to aquatic lifestyles such as osteosclerosis, pachyostosis, osteoporotic-like pattern and pachyosteosclerosis have been observed in the long bones of secondarily aquatic amniotes. However, there are no known studies on the analysis of bone compactness in the dermal pectoral girdle of non-amniote taxa including Temnospondyli. This study looks at evidence of changes in bone mass adaptations in the dermal bones of the pectoral girdle of two stereospondyls occurring in the Late Triassic Krasiejόw locality (Southwestern Poland), namely: Metoposaurus krasiejowensis and Cyclotosaurus intermedius. However, because of lack of research on bone compactness of temnospondyls in general, there is no existent frame of reference to infer bone mass increase (BMI) in the M. krasiejowensis samples, and thus the bone compactness results of this taxon are compared with that of the samples of C. intermedius. Results of this study indicate that the interclavicles of M. krasiejowensis partially evolved BMI-like condition rendering these bones to be heavy enough to get selected as ballast during hydrostatic buoyancy control. Additionally, M. krasiejowensis shared its habitat with C. intermedius, however, the dermal pectoral girdle sample of the latter taxon does not display signs of BMI-like condition. Furthermore, the absence of variation in hydrostatic buoyancy control in the ontogenetic series of interclavicles of M. krasiejowensis could imply lack of ontogenetic niche shift along the water column.