Termites could be dinosaur's major decomposers

Paleontologists have uncovered dinosaur bones holding novel insect traces that suggest ancient termites may have played an important role as decomposers of vertebrate remains such as those of dinosaurs in the Early Jurassic era.

A new trace fossil offers evidence for the hypothesis that termites, as the oldest known eusocial insects, originated from the Jurassic period or even earlier, said the team involved in the research on Monday.

The 195 million year-old fossil is composed of a complex network of burrows on the surfaces of a skeleton of an Early Jurassic dinosaur excavated in Konglongshan Town, Lufeng County, southwest China's Yunnan Province in 2005.

"The dense network of burrow-like traces on the dinosaur skeleton is a structure that hasn't been discovered before," said Xing Lida, doctoral student with the China University of Geosciences.

Trace fossils are traces formed by the behavior of an organism in the process of interacting with a substrate. Such behaviors include walking, digging, nesting, foraging and dwelling.

In most instances, the trace maker is not fossilized along with the trace, making associating the trace with a particular organism difficult, according to Xing.

Ran Hao, an ant expert and a member of the research team, said, "Of possible trace makers, we readily dismissed thalassinid shrimp, mayflies, tineid moths and some species of ants as candidates.

"Although beetles cannot be completely ruled out, a termite or its ancestors is the most probable trace maker based on comparative analysis of extant termite trace morphology."

Similar burrows on other prosauropod dinosaur fossils from the same site indicate that in the Early Jurassic era, social insects may have served as important decomposers of vertebrate remains, according to the paleontologists.

The research team is comprised of experts from China, the United States, Canada and Australia. Their research results have been published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.