Europasaurus is a long-necked, herbivorous dinosaur that lived in the Late Jurassic, about 154 million years ago, on a small island in modern-day Germany. Recently, scientists from the universities of Vienna and Greifswald examined fossil braincase material of Europasaurus with the aid of micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). The digital reconstruction of the inner ear of Europasaurus gave the researchers new insights not only into its hearing ability, but also into its reproductive and social behaviour. The study was recently published in eLife.

 

Like its famous relative Brachiosaurus, Europasaurus belongs to the group of sauropod dinosaurs, which include the largest land-living animals that ever lived on Earth. Some representatives could attain body lengths of around 40 metres, possibly weighing up to 80 metric tons. However, Europasaurus holgeri was a comparatively small sauropod species with a body height of up to three metres.

 

Europasaurus, which lived about 154 million years ago on an island in modern-day Germany, constitutes the first dinosaur for which the evolutionary phenomenon of insular dwarfism was demonstrated: large island-dwelling animals become smaller over a number of generations. Possibly, Europasaurus represents the fossil counterpart to the recent Sumatran tiger and rhino, which are smaller than their closest relatives from the mainland.