After careful analysis of the bones' internal structure, the team concluded that the damage wasn't the result of an injury suffered on the hunt, but congenital hip dysplasia. This scanned cat's CAT scan upended the previous interpretation of its hip bones. That's when we decided to collaborate and began the analysis of the etiology of the end-stage degeneration of the saber-tooth hips." Chris took me to the stacks and showed me the three pelvises and one femur that he was studying. I asked him where were the abnormal joints that I knew must have existed. "When I saw the incredible display of bones at La Brea Tar Pits, I immediately asked to meet (then Collections Manager and study co-author) Chris Shaw. Seeing the sheer amount of skulls on the Tar Pits' dire wolf wall over a decade ago led to talking his way into the collection. Robert Klapper, orthopaedic surgeon and sculptor. "Understanding the 3D shape of a skeleton is fascinating to me," says co-author Dr. And so if we were to CT-scan a specimen-with CT being a resource-intensive method- then we had to start with this one," says Dr.
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"To quote Roy Moodie in his 1930 study: this pelvis is 'the most strikingly pathological object in the collection of Rancho La Brea fossils'. Using computed tomography, the same technology common in hospitals (and veterinarian offices), the pelvis and matching thigh bone were scanned, and the resulting images were used to create 3D models of the inside of the bones. For more than a century, paleontologists thought the massive destruction of the pelvis examined in this study was caused by trauma or infection that eventually led to the animal's death, but a look inside the bone using modern medical technology told a different story.
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Balisi) in many Smilodon vertebrae points to a hunting style that includes grappling with large Ice Age prey, like bison. For instance, the lower-back trauma found (and reported in an earlier article by Dr. These damaged bones are incredibly valuable for better understanding extinct animals' behavior.
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Part of the richness of La Brea Tar Pits' collection are the fossils exhibiting signs of injury and disease-the more than 8,000 specimens that make up the pathology collection. Mairin Balisi, Postdoctoral Fellow at La Brea Tar Pits, in collaboration with orthopaedic surgeons at Cedars-Sinai hospital, used 3D image reconstruction of external and internal bone morphology of a deformed Smilodon hip bone to reveal this saber-toothed cat suffered from hip dysplasia, suggesting a social structure that helped members survive to adulthood even when they couldn't hunt for themselves due to this birth defect. Published in Scientific Reports, a new study led by Dr.