Giant vegetarian dinosaurs evolved all-terrain bodies to support mountain living

Some of the world's largest dinosaurs moved to the hills and developed all-terrain bodies to support mountain living, concludes a new study.

The study has been published in the journal Paleobiology.

These dinosaurs were plant-eating titanosaurs.

According to Discovery News, palaeontologists Philip Mannion and Paul Upchurch at University College London discovered that inland and mountain-dwelling titanosaurs had a wider legged stance than coastal dwelling sauropods.

"Their wider stance perhaps benefits walking in irregular terrain," Mannion informed Planet Earth.

The scientists first researched on sauropods if they lived in different habitats. They gathered 2500-entry database having all known worldwide occurrences of sauropods.

They then moved on to titanosaurs because geological properties of the rock where fossils of such dinosaurs are found give a good hint of their place of existence. The palaeontologists said "titanosaurs preferred inland habitats, for example lake and river environments or mountainous areas with irregular terrain."

"This may explain why titanosaurs survived for 20 million years, after all other sauropods went extinct. Maybe their preference for inland environments was beneficial and protected the group from extinction until they disappeared with all other dinosaurs," Mannion said.