also appears to have had a life expectancy of roughly twenty years and lived in herds of mixed ages. Palaeobiology Dysalotosaurus was a precocial dinosaur, which experienced sexual maturity at ten years, had an indeterminate growth pattern, and maximum growth rates comparable to a large kangaroo. Palaeopathology In 2011 paleontologists Florian Witzmann and Oliver Hampe from the Museum für Naturkunde and colleagues discovered that deformations of some Dysalotosaurus bones were likely caused by a viral infection similar to Paget's disease of bone. This is the oldest evidence of viral infection known to science. The discovery of a hemivertebra (spinal malformation) in another specimen likely caused scoliosis and other pathologic effects on the animal during its life. This malformation occurs in almost every vertebrate clade, though this is the first known evidence of the condition in dinosaurs. Palaeoecology Contemporary dinosaurs were Kentrosaurus, various sauropods including Giraffatitan and Dicraeosaurus, and large theropods including Megalosaurus and Ceratosaurus. Pterosaurs are also common in the Tendaguru Formation, as well as mammaliaformes (ancestral to mammals). During the Jurassic, Tendaguru was part of the semi-arid coastline of Gondwana. Dysalotosaurus fossils were discovered in strata that were deposited in structures characteristic of tidal flats and lagoons. References Late Jurassic dinosaurs of Africa Fossil taxa described in 1919 Iguanodonts Tendaguru fauna Ornithischian genera