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To date, to our knowledge, no cases of malignant cancer have been reported in dinosaurs with sufficient reliability to be considered confirmed, at least by modern medical standards, which require biopsy and examination at the cellular level. Specifically, these diagnoses included (1) fracture, which was rejected because of the extension of abnormal bone very distal to the lesion despite more normal cortex in this location and the lack of a proximal fracture fragment; (2) osteomyelitis, which was rejected because of a lack of characteristic pockmarking and the bone-forming nature of the lesion; (3) non-ossifying fibroma, which was rejected because of the highly disorganised bone and no well defined zone of transition; and (4) osteochondroma, which was rejected given that the lesion clearly does not arise from or near a physis. [...]our findings indicate the presence of an osteosarcoma, meeting all the criteria discussed in terms of the morphological, radiological, and histological confirmation of this diagnosis. [...]to our knowledge, we provide the first confirmed case of malignant bone cancer in a dinosaur.

Other than repaired fractures, osteoarthritis, and periosteal reaction, the vertebrate fossil record has limited evidence of non-osseous diseases. This difficulty in paleontological diagnoses stems from (1) the inability to conduct medical testing, (2) soft-tissue pathologic structures are less likely to be preserved, and (3) many osseous lesions are not diagnostically specific. However, here reported for the first time is an avian-style respiratory disorder in a non-avian dinosaur. This sauropod presents irregular bony pathologic structures stemming from the pneumatic features in the cervical vertebrae. As sauropods show well-understood osteological correlates indicating that respiratory tissues were incorporated into the post-cranial skeleton, and thus likely had an ‘avian-style’ form of respiration, it is most parsimonious to identify these pathologic structures as stemming from a respiratory infection. Although several extant avian infections produce comparable symptoms, the most parsimonious is airsacculitis with associated osteomyelitis. From actinobacterial to fungal in origin, airsacculitis is an extremely prevalent respiratory disorder in birds today. While we cannot pinpoint the specific infectious agent that caused the airsacculitis, this diagnosis establishes the first fossil record of this disease. Additionally, it allows us increased insight into the medical disorders of dinosaurs from a phylogenetic perspective and understanding what maladies plagued the “fearfully great lizards”.

While only distantly related to mammals, the anatomy of Permian gorgonopsians has shed light on the functional biology of non-mammalian synapsids and on the origins of iconic ‘mammal-like’ anatomical traits. However, little is known of gorgonopsian behaviour or physiology, which would aid in reconstructing the paleobiological context in which familiar mammalian features arose. Using multi-modal imaging, we report a discrete osseous lesion in the forelimb of a late Permian-aged gorgonopsian synapsid, recording reactive periosteal bone deposition and providing insights into the origins and diversity of skeletal healing responses in premammalian synapsids. We suggest that the localized lesion on the anterolateral (preaxial) shaft of the left radius represents acute periostitis and, conservatively, most likely developed as a subperiosteal haematoma with subsequent bone deposition and limited internal remodelling. The site records an inner zone of reactive cortical bone forming irregular to radial bony spicules and an outer, denser zone of slowed subperiosteal bone apposition, all of which likely occurred within a single growing season. In surveys of modern reptiles—crocodylians, varanids—such haematomas are rare compared to other documented osteopathologies. The extent and rapidity of the healing response is reminiscent of mammalian and dinosaurian bone pathologies, and may indicate differing behaviour or bone physiology compared to non-dinosaurian reptiles. This report adds to a growing list of putative disease entities recognized in early synapsids and broadens comparative baselines for pathologies and the evolution of bone response to disease in mammalian forebears. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Vertebrate palaeophysiology’.

The human skeleton of a young adult male with marked asymmetry of the bilateral upper extremities was excavated from the Mashiki-Azamabaru site (3000–2000 BCE) on the main island of Okinawa in the southwestern archipelago of Japan. The skeleton was buried alone in a corner of the cemetery. In this study, morphological and radiographic observations were made on this skeleton, and the pathogenesis of the bone growth disorder observed in the left upper limb was discussed. The maximum diameter of the midshaft of the humerus was 13.8 mm on the left and 21.2 mm on the right. The long bones comprising the left upper extremity lost the structure of the muscle attachments except for the deltoid tubercle of the humerus. The bone morphology of the right upper extremity and the bilateral lower extremities was maintained and was close to the mean value of females from the Ohtomo site in northwestern Kyushu, Japan, during the Yayoi period. It is assumed that the anomalous bone morphology confined to the left upper extremity was secondary to the prolonged loss of function of the muscles attached to left extremity bones. In this case, birth palsy, brachial plexus injury in childhood, and acute grey matter myelitis were diagnosed. It was suggested that this person had survived into young adulthood with severe paralysis of the left upper extremity due to injury or disease at an early age.

The histology of sauropod long bones often appears uniform and conservative along their evolutionary tree. One of the main aspects of their bone histology is to exhibit a fibrolamellar complex in the cortex of their long bones. Here, we report another bone tissue, the radial fibrolamellar bone (RFB), in the outer cortex of the humeri of a young adult cf. Isanosaurus (Early to Late Jurassic, Thailand) and an adult Spinophorosaurus nigerensis (Early to Middle Jurassic, Niger) that do not exhibit any pathological feature on the bone surface. Its location within the cortex is unexpected, because RFB is a rapidly deposited bone tissue that would rather be expected early in the ontogeny. A palaeopathological survey was conducted for these sampled specimens. Observed RFB occurrences are regarded as spiculated periosteal reactive bone, which is an aggressive form of periosteal reaction. A ‘hair-on-end’ pattern of neoplasmic origin (resembling a Ewing's sarcoma) is favoured for cf. Isanosaurus , while a sunburst pattern of viral or neoplasmic origin (resembling an avian osteopetrosis or haemangioma) is favoured for Spinophorosaurus . This study highlights the importance of bone histology in assessing the frequency and nature of palaeopathologies. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Vertebrate palaeophysiology’.

Susceptibility to diseases is common to humans and dinosaurs. Since much of the biological history of every living creature is shaped by its diseases, recognizing them in fossilized bone can furnish us with important information on dinosaurs’ physiology and anatomy, as well as on their daily activities and surrounding environment. In the present study, we examined the vertebrae of two humans from skeletal collections with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH), a benign osteolytic tumor-like disorder involving mainly the skeleton; they were diagnosed in life, along with two hadrosaur vertebrae with an apparent lesion. Macroscopic and microscopic analyses of the hadrosaur vertebrae were compared to human LCH and to other pathologies observed via an extensive pathological survey of a human skeletal collection, as well as a three-dimensional reconstruction of the lesion and its associated blood vessels from a µCT scan. The hadrosaur pathology findings were indistinguishable from those of humans with LCH, supporting that diagnosis. This report suggests that hadrosaurids had suffered from larger variety of pathologies than previously reported. Furthermore, it seems that LCH may be independent of phylogeny.

Stereoscopic microwear and 3D surface texture analyses on the cheek teeth of ten Upper Triassic to Lower Cretaceous tritylodontid (Mammaliamorpha) taxa of small/medium to large body size suggest that all were generalist feeders and none was a dietary specialist adapted to herbivory. There was no correspondence between body size and food choice. Stereomicroscopic microwear analysis revealed predominantly fine wear features with numerous small pits and less abundant fine scratches as principal components. Almost all analyzed facets bear some coarser microwear features, such as coarse scratches, large pits, puncture pits and gouges pointing to episodic feeding on harder food items or exogenous effects (contamination of food with soil grit and/or dust), or both. 3D surface texture analysis indicates predominantly fine features with large void volume, low peak densities, and various stages of roundness of the peaks. We interpret these features to indicate consumption of food items with low to moderate intrinsic abrasiveness and can exclude regular rooting, digging or caching behavior. Possible food items include plant vegetative parts, plant reproductive structures (seeds and seed-bearing organs), and invertebrates (i.e., insects). Although the tritylodontid tooth morphology and auto-occlusion suggest plants as the primary food resource, our results imply a wider dietary range including animal matter.

In archaeological assemblages the presence of percussion marks, on the surface of long bones, is an indicator of long bone marrow extraction. The form, quantity and distribution of percussion marks are analysed to gain a better understanding of the marrow extraction process. Patterns of bone percussion damage in archaeological assemblages may highlight standardized actions, possibly related to butchery traditions. However, additional factors could underlie these patterns and should also be considered. In this article we test intuitiveness as a factor in appearance of percussion mark patterns, to see if patterns can appear when bones are being fractured without prior experience with bone fracture properties. To test this hypothesis, for this study we selected a sample of 40 cattle (Bos taurus) long limb bones from a large bone breakage experiment (400 long limb bones), where participants had no previous experience in bone breakage and may thus have broken bones intuitively. We used Geographic Information System (GIS) software to analyse the distribution of percussion marks. Using ArcGIS Spatial Analysts tools, we identified and quantified significant concentrations of percussion marks. Results show that percussion mark patterns emerge for the same bone element, and that specific sides and zones were recurrently selected by experimenters. The distribution of patterns varies among the different long bone elements, and we attribute this variance to an adjustment to bone morphology. In addition, we calculated and identified bone damage patterns resulting from hammerstone percussion. Crossing bone survivorship with percussion mark patterns enabled us to recognise and evaluate the effects of fragmentation and surface visibility in controlled experimental conditions. The GIS method facilitates comparisons between different variables and provides a sophisticated visual representation of results. Enlarging the sample will allow to constitute a more substantial analogous model for fossil assemblages.

A cave site Shelter in Smoleń III (southern Poland) contains an approximately 2-m-thick stratified sequence of Upper Pleistocene and Holocene clastic sediments, unique for Central Europe. The sequence contents abundant fossil fauna, including mollusk, rodent and bat remains. The cave sites with long profiles of subfossil fauna present a great value for reconstructions of regional terrestrial paleoenvironment. We explore the stratigraphy of this site through analyses of the lithology and geochemistry of sediments, radiocarbon dating of faunal and human remains and charcoals, and archaeological study, as well as the paleoecology derived from the taxonomic composition of fossil faunal assemblages. Our data show that the entire period of the Holocene is recorded in the rockshelter, which makes that site an exceptional and highly valuable case. We present paleoenvironmental reconstructions of regional importance, and we propose to regard Shelter in Smoleń III as a regional stratigraphic stratotype of Holocene clastic cave sediments.

Transverse lines, called Harris Lines (HL), osteological markers of recovery from growth arrest episodes, are visible in radiograms of recent and Pleistocene fossil bones. Since on the one hand they mark stressful episodes in life, and on the other are mainly used to trace health fluctuations in prehistoric human communities, I used a cave bear population to check if the processes that could affect the specie' condition were in any way reflected in the bone structure. 392 bear bones from Bear Cave in Kletno (collection: Department of Palaeozoology, University of Wrocław), dated as 32 100 ±1300 to >49 000 years BP, were radiologically examined. The bones were found in a non-anatomical position; morphological analysis indicated that they belonged to different individuals. HL shadows were observed on 9 tibiae and 3 radii: 8.8% out of the 59 tibiae and 77 radii and 3.1% of all the bones. At least 3 transverse lines were recognised in those cases; the specimens were histologically examined. The bear individuals in question experienced regular malnutrition periods during their ontogeny. Starvation resulting in growth inhibition involved young individuals, aged 1 to 4 years. Juveniles aged 6 months, i.e. before weaning, or younger, showed no signs of nutritional stress. Starvation periods associated with seasonal food deficit were not long or common and had no significant effect on the development and welfare of the species. This is the first description of the occurrence of transverse lines in the Pleistocene bear.