Scientists find evolved species of 280-mn-years old plant that were part of Dinosaur diet

Scientists have found a fossil of an ancient plant that dates back to more than 280 million years. The new research has revealed the origins of a lineage called cycads, or Cycadales that continues to exist even in the present time. The research has described about how the preserved species of a small piece of wood lived through two mass extinctions on the planet Earth and continue to survive through its evolved counterparts.

Ancient plants survive mass extinctions

The research has been published in the Journal Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology. The research explained how a plant over five inches long and 2.5 inches wide survived through two mass extinctions on Earth. The preserved species have been named as Iratinia australis which comes from the Latin word "Australis" which means "south" as the fossil came from the southern part of a rock layer known as the Irati Formation, present in the Kungurian region in Brazil. The lineage endured a pair of cataclysms when most life was killed on the planet. The first extinction occurred at the end of the Permian geological period 250 million years ago and the other was the extinction 66 million years ago that brought the age of dinosaurs to an end, reported The New York Times.

Rafael Spiekermann, lead author of the study and graduate student at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Germany told The New York Times that the vegetative anatomy of two plants have shown resemblance. He said that the fossilised plant has the same cross-section as the anatomical pattern of cycadale plant that has been found. Andre Jasper, a biology professor at the University of Taquari Valley in Brazil and an author of the paper, told The New York Times that the relatives of this ancient plant can be found in Australia, Asia, Africa, and America. Dennis Stevenson, an emeritus senior curator at the New York Botanical Garden and an expert on cycadales who was not involved with the research has told the daily that these plants were part of dinosaur diet.

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