Fig. 2: Distribution of body size is not explained by palaeotemperature or palaeolatitude in mammaliaforms or dinosaurs.
From: Global latitudinal gradients and the evolution of body size in dinosaurs and mammals
Top three rows show the geographic distribution of Mesozoic dinosaurs in the Cretaceous, Jurassic, and Triassic. The bottom row shows the geographic distribution of Mesozoic mammaliaforms. Palaeogeographic maps show the locations of fossil taxa, obtained from GPlates using the R package chronosphere81, with points scaled by log10-transformed body size (millimetres for dinosaurs and grams for mammaliaforms). Colours represent the estimated local mean annual palaeotemperature (left) and cold-month mean palaeotemperature (right) in °C. Silhouettes highlight Nanuqsaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus of the high-latitude Cretaceous Prince Creek Formation and the Mesozoic mammaliaforms Morganucodon and Steropodon, coloured by estimated MAT and CMMT (°C). MAT mean annual temperature, CMMT cold-month mean temperature, Ma million years ago, LogFem log10-transformed femur circumference, LogMass log10-transformed body mass.
