Influence of taphonomy on histological evidence for vertebral pneumaticity in an Upper Cretaceous titanosaur from South America

Abstract

There is a necessity to systematically sample taxa to enlighten our knowledge on the presence of histological correlates of avian-like air sacs among dinosaurs. This work expands the studies on the occurrence of pneumosteum in sauropods to the Brazilian lithostrotian titanosaur Uberabatitan ribeiroi. This confirms previous hypotheses on the insertion of an air sacs system on titanosaurian vertebrae based on external observation and CT-scans. We also highlight that diagenesis can obliterate traces of pneumosteal bone. Caution is required to have a good understanding of the diagenetic history of the studied specimens. This could avoid false negatives, especially when sampling pneumatic histological traces in stem taxa. Additionally, we describe a new workflow for manipulating CT-scan data using open-source software. The goal is to make this technology more accessible to research groups with limited funding and potentialize the achievement of more paleontological data.