Dino of the Week: Pulanesaura

Type Species: Pulanesaura eocollum

Classification: Dinosauria - Saurischia - Sauropoda

Time Period: Early Jurassic

Location: South Africa

Diet: Herbivore

The twenty-five-foot-long Pulanesaura lived in the Early Jurassic of South Africa. It’s known from the partial remains of two subadult to adult individuals. Pulanesaura lived among other sauropodomorphs such as Aardonyx, Arcusaurus, and Massospondylus, but it wouldn’t have competed with them for food. This is possible not because Pulanesaura was carnivorous but because of ‘niche partitioning’: in any ecosystem, multiple kinds of animals can live together by exploiting different aspects of the environment. Scientists clued in to Pulanesaura’s role in niche partitioning because of the design of its neck: whereas its fellow sauropodomorphs were ‘high browsers’ (they ate food above ground level), Pulanesaura’s long, flexible neck enabled it to browse at ground level. It could root itself in one spot and sweep its long neck back and forth at ground level, munching on the ferns that sprouted in the arid floodplains of Early Jurassic South Africa. This trait would later be taken up by larger sauropods with much longer necks.