This is evidenced by unusually bony protrusions discovered on the neck of an excavated long-necked dinosaur. Possibly ‘the cold’ even killed the poor animal.

A cold can be quite annoying. For days you can suffer from a stuffy nose, sneezing, coughing and sore throat. But it is possible that not only contemporary living organisms sometimes catch a cold. Because researchers suspect that dinosaurs were sometimes knocked out by something similar.

diplodocus

The researchers reached that conclusion after poring over the fossilized remains of a young Diplodocus. This was a long-necked and giant herbivorous dinosaur. The studied specimen, nicknamed Dolly, was discovered in 1990 in the southwestern US state of Montana and dates to the late Jurassic Period (about 150 million years ago).

Bony protrusions

The team took a closer look at three of the bones from Dolly’s neck and made a surprising discovery. The bones appear to have unusually bony projections, with an unusual and irregular shape and structure. These protrusions are located near where the so-called air sacs once sat. Like birds, the dinosaur probably had a respiratory system in which the lungs were ventilated through these air sacs. Using CT scans, the researchers then subjected the strange protrusions to a thorough inspection. And it turns out that they’re made up of abnormal bone, most likely formed in response to a nasty respiratory infection.

(A) Schematic representation of the neck of the studied Diplodocus. The abnormal bone growth is colored red here. (B) Cervical vertebra of MOR 7029. In the red square the unusual structure is emphasized again. (C) a close-up and (D) an interpretive drawing of the condition. Image: Woodruff et al. (2022)

Based on the location of the unusual bony prominences, the researchers believe they formed in response to an infection in the air sacs, which then spread to the neck bones. And the unfortunate Dolly may have been sick of that.

Symptoms
Dolly may have had cold or pneumonia-like symptoms, such as weight loss, cough, fever and difficulty breathing. “Given the likely symptoms this animal suffered, you can’t help but feel sorry for Dolly,” said study researcher Cary Woodruff. “We’ve all experienced the same symptoms at one time or another — cough, difficulty breathing, fever, etc. Here we have a 150-million-year-old dinosaur who probably felt as miserable as any of us when we were sick.”

Scoop
It’s a first. Because it is the first time that a dinosaur has been shown to possibly suffer from a respiratory infection. The researchers therefore state that it could well be that ‘dinosaurs sometimes also had a cold’ and contracted respiratory diseases.

Aspergillosis
The researchers speculate that the respiratory infection was caused by a fungal infection, similar to aspergillosis; a common respiratory disease that affects birds and reptiles and can lead to bone infections. Left untreated, aspergillosis can be fatal to modern birds. And that means that the disease could have even killed the ill-fated Dolly.

The researchers do not know whether the long-necked dinosaur did indeed come to an end in this miserable way. However, “the findings expand our understanding of the diseases that afflicted dinosaurs,” Woodruff said. In the meantime, we are getting a better understanding of what ailments dinosaurs could get. For example, it has already been shown that foot tumors and aggressive forms of cancer are not strange to dinosaurs. And to that nasty list we can now also add a respiratory infection.