Episode 467: Early Dinosaur Entrepreneurs and Triceratops Horn Lengths. Mary Anning, Franz Nopcsa, and Roy Chapman Andrews were some of the first dinosaur entrepreneurs. Plus large dinosaur eyes, small microfossils, dinosaur poaching, and new Triceratops horn length estimates.

This episode’s Dinosaur Connection Challenge, about paleo entrepreneurs, brought to you by Podia (podia.com/dinos)

News:

• Paleontologists discussed the state of Dinosauria source
• Dinosaur eye size can help scientists figure out how well an animal could see source
• Microfossils are important and are now getting studied more source
• The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology participates in discussions and issues that affect vertebrate paleontology and the public source
• Four people were arrested for allegedly stealing and selling $1 million worth of dinosaur bones source
• Fossils found on federal lands are important to the science of paleontology source

Sponsors:

This episode is brought to you by Mini Museum. They curate billions of years of science and history into collections that can fit on your shelf! Explore dozens of unique specimens (including dinosaur fossils) at minimuseum.com and use code IKNOWDINO for 10% off

The dinosaur of the day: Euhelopus

• Sauropod that lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Shandong Province, China (Meng-Yin Formation)
• Large, walked on all fours, and had longer forelimbs than hindlimbs
• Had a long neck, and looked similar to Mamenchisaurus, but they’re not that closely related
• More closely related to titanosaurs
• Skull looks similar to Camarasaurus, and also has some similarities to Mamenchisaurus
• Neck was about 13 ft (4 m) long and had 17 neck vertebrae
• Had air sacs in the neck, similar to titanosauriforms and some mamenchisaurids
• Had a box-like skull shape, with large nostrils
• Had pencil-like teeth
• Probably ate hardy vegetation
• Different size estimates: thought to be up to 49 ft (15 m) long and weigh 17 to 22 tons; later thought to be about 36 ft (11 m) long and weigh close to 4 tons; another estimate was about 6.5 tons, and a later estimate was it weighed almost 4 tons
• First dinosaur to be named and described from China
• Found a partial skeleton that included a relatively complete skull and lower jaws, vertebrae, the left thighbone, part of the shoulder, and another skeleton that included vertebrae, a nearly complete pelvis, right leg
• Unique features include details in the neck vertebrae, having divided or forked neural spines on the back of the neck and front of the back, and having air sacs in the ilium (upper half of the pelvis)
• Fossils first found in 1913 by a Catholic priest, Father Mertens. He showed some of the bones to Gustav Behaghel, a German mining engineer, in 1916, who sent three vertebrae to Ding Wenjiang (V.K. Ting), the head of the Geological Survey of China
• Fossil site rediscovered in 1922
• Then in 1923 two skeletons excavated, and H. C. T’an studied the holotype
• Originally named in 1929 as Helopus, by Carl Wiman which means “Marsh Foot”
• Genus name refers to the marshy area where the fossils were found, as well as to truga, Swedish swamp shoes that Wiman said looked like the wide feet of the dinosaur
• Turns out, the name was already used for a bird, named in 1832
• Renamed Euhelopus in 1956 by Alfred Romer
• Genus name means “true marsh foot”
• There is a grass/plant with the same name, but since it’s a plant, Euhelopus can also be the name of a dinosaur/animal
• Type species is Euhelophus zdanskyi
• Species name is in honor of Zdansky
• Zdansky didn’t finish excavating the holotype so in 1934 C. C. Young and M. N. Bien found more bones (parts of the shoulder and right humerus)
• Both skeletons are at the Paleontological Museum of Uppsala University in Sweden (have been on display since the 1930s)
• One of the few sauropods known from an almost complete skull and jaw
• Some of the teeth found were originally thought to belong to a mammal, but were later redescribed as belonging to Euhelopus
• Lots of debate over what type of sauropod Euhelopus is
• Had a long neck and tail, a sloping back, and a proportionately small head
• In 2010, Andreas Christian studied the head and neck of Euhelopus
• Head and neck together weighed about 460 lb (210 kg), and base of the neck to the snout was about 15 ft (4.6 m)
• Calculated the stresses the neck joints felt, and found Euhelopus probably kept its head up like a giraffe’s
• Would have helped eat medium and high up leaves
• Kept neck at an angle of between 40 and 50 degrees
• Did not have a very flexible neck
• Would have taken less energy to keep its neck up maintain its high blood pressure for eating leaves up high than walking to find more food
• Had long neck ribs that helped it shift muscle mass further back towards the trunk
• “During a food shortage, raising the neck was probably even essential for surviving; it is better to get little than nothing at all”
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place included stegosaurids (indeterminate fossils found), fish, and reptiles

Fun Fact:

Triceratops horns were probably covered in keratin that made them significantly longer, but possibly less sharp than the horn cores preserved with the skulls

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