ScienceDaily (Nov. 2,
2012) — In the evolutionary long run, small critters tend to evolve into
bigger beasts -- at least according to the idea attributed to paleontologist
Edward Cope, now known as Cope's Rule. Using the latest advanced statistical
modeling methods, a new test of this rule as it applies dinosaurs shows that
Cope was right -- sometimes.
"For a long time,
dinosaurs were thought to be the example of Cope's Rule," says Gene Hunt,
curator in the Department of Paleobiology at the National Museum of Natural
History (NMNH) in Washington, D.C. Other groups, particularly mammals, also
provide plenty of classic examples of the rule, Hunt says.
To see if Cope's rule really
applies to dinosaurs, Hunt and colleagues Richard FitzJohn of the University of
British Columbia and Matthew Carrano of the NMNH used dinosaur thigh bones (aka
femurs) as proxies for animal size. They then used that femur data in their
statistical model to look for two things: directional trends in size over time
and whether there were any detectable upper limits for body size.
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