Spondarthritis in the triassic

The evidence of several forms of arthritis has been well documented in the fossil record. However, for pre-Cenozoic vertebrates, especially regarding reptiles, this record is rather scarce. In this work we present a case report of spondarthritis found in a vertebral series that belonged to a carnivo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2010-10, Vol.5 (10), p.e13425-e13425
Main Authors: Cisneros, Juan Carlos, Gomes Cabral, Uiara, de Beer, Frikkie, Damiani, Ross, Costa Fortier, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Arthritis
Arthritis - pathology
Cenozoic
Congenital diseases
Diagnosis
Evolutionary Biology
Evolutionary Biology/Paleontology
Fossils
Intervertebral discs
Jurassic
Jurassic period
Mysticeti
Nuclear reactors
Nuclei
Nuclei (nuclear physics)
Nucleus pulposus
Odontoceti
Ossification
Pathology
Radiology and Medical Imaging
Reptiles
Rheumatology
Tomography
Triassic
Vertebra
Vertebrae
Vertebrates
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Summary:The evidence of several forms of arthritis has been well documented in the fossil record. However, for pre-Cenozoic vertebrates, especially regarding reptiles, this record is rather scarce. In this work we present a case report of spondarthritis found in a vertebral series that belonged to a carnivorous archosaurian reptile from the Lower Triassic (∼245 million years old) of the South African Karoo. Neutron tomography confirmed macroscopic data, revealing the ossification of the entire intervertebral disc space (both annulus fibrosus and nucleus pulposus), which supports the diagnosis of spondarthritis. The presence of spondarthritis in the new specimen represents by far the earliest evidence of any form of arthritis in the fossil record. The present find is nearly 100 million years older than the previous oldest report of this pathology, based on a Late Jurassic dinosaur. Spondarthritis may have indirectly contributed to the death of the animal under study.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0013425