Episode 386: Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus infighting. Plus a new Tyrannosaurus going on display in New Zealand; What covered the neck spines on Amargasaurus; And a lot more sauropod news
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News:
- Researchers found that Big John, the Triceratops horridus, was injured by another ceratopsian source
- A new T. rex specimen was described and is going on display at the Auckland Museum in New Zealand source
- Amargasaurus may have had more of a sail on its neck instead of tall spines source
- Scientists studied a sauropodomorph from the beginning of the Late Triassic and found it was already relatively large source
- Scientists analyzed and redescribed Patagosaurus fariasi source
- Researchers found an air sac system in an adult saltasaurid titanosaur that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Brazil source
- The W.T. Bland Public Library in Mount Dora, Florida has a Nothronychus on display source
- The SODO district of Seattle, Washington now has Dinos Alive Exhibition: An Immersive Experience source
- David Attenborough’s Dinosaurs: The Final Day, is airing in the U.S. on May 11 source
- The casts of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World reflected on Jurassic Park and how Dominion ties in into the franchise source
- A new image shows Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) with a baby Nasutoceratops source
- In Jurassic World: Dominion Giganotosaurus is meant to feel like the Joker from the Dark Knight source
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The dinosaur of the day: Euskelosaurus
- Plateosaurid sauropodomorph that lived in the Late Triassic/Early Jurassic in what is now South Africa and Lesotho (Elliot Formation) and Zimbabwe (Mpandi Formation)
- Looked like other sauropodomorphs, with a long neck and tail, long arms, long claws, a small head, and probably walked on two legs
- Large and robust
- Estimated to be about 33 ft (10 m) long
- Type species is Euskelosaurus brownii
- Fossils found in 1863 by Alfred Brown (limb bones and vertebrae)
- Described in 1866 by Thomas Huxley
- Genus name means “good leg lizard”
- Species name is in honor of Alfred Brown
- Heerden in 1979 suggested Euskelosaurus was more bow legged, based on the way its femur was twisted
- Another specimen with a skull was found in 1994 in the Elliot Formation; published about it in 2000
- Specimen at the time may have been one of the oldest known dinosaurs
- Found Euskelosaurus to be more basal than the sauropodomorph Riojasaurus, one of the earliest sauropodomorphs, because the neck was not quite as long and the braincase was slightly more primitive
- Juvenile Euskelosaurus fossils were found between 1995 and 1997 (published about in 2001) in the Elliot Formation
- Fossils included juveniles and adults
- Fossils were in a bone bed, and thought to have been killed by flash floods
- Based on the size of the juveniles (23 to 49 in or 58 to 125 cm long), they were probably “precocious juveniles [that] could forage with their mothers”
- Some scientists have in the past considered Euskelosaurus to be a waste-basket taxon
- At one point, Plateosauravus was considered to be Euskelosaurus
- Plateosaurus cullingworthi was named in 1924 by Sidney Haughton
- Species name in honor of T.L. Cullingworth, who collected the fossils
- In 1932, Friedrich von Huene renamed it as its own genus, Plateosauravus
- Genus name means “grandfather of Plateosaurus”
- In 1979 Jacques van Heerden reassigned it to Euskelosaurus
- Then Adam Yates later suggested using Plateosauravus
- Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place include the sauropodomorphs Blikanasaurus, Plateosauravus, Melanorosaurus, and Meroktenos
Fun Fact:
Titanosaurs may have been such a successful bunch because of their nesting behavior.
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