Episode 422: Top 22 Dinosaur Discoveries of 2022. Dinosaur soft tissues, fossilized injuries, amazing new herbivores, an extremely important carnivore, and much more

News:

• Best soft tissue: Dakota the Edmontosaurus mummy source
• Best soft tissue honorable mention #1: Dinosaur intestines source
• Best soft tissue honorable mention #2: Sauropod skin (goosebumps) source
• Best paleopathology study: Dolly the sauropod respiratory infection source
• Earliest sauropod of the year: Mbiresaurus source
• Largest megaraptorid of the year: Maip source
• Keeping the debate going: Torosaurus considered valid source
• Biggest movies/shows of the year: Jurassic World: Dominion and Prehistoric Planet source
• Most misunderstood dinosaur: Dodo source
• Our favorite new segment: The Dinosaur Connection Challenge: Connecting dinosaurs to sandwiches source
• Best news for Ubirajara fans in Brazil: Ubirajara returning to Brazil source
• Best dinosaur embryo: Baby Yingliang source
• Best early thyreophoran: Jakapil source
• Best stegosaur: New stegosaur Bashanosaurus source
• Furthest reaching dinosaur story: glass beads on the moon from craters that hit earth source
• Best T. rex study(s): Presentations at SVP that Tyrannosaurs had tiny arms before they had huge heads source
• Smallest sauropod of the year: Ibirania source
• Best new herbivore: Stegouros source
• Best new herbivore honorable mention: Ankylosaur: Yuxisaurus source
• Best new carnivore: New carcharodontosaurid Meraxes source
• BONUS: Stromer’s Riddle but with mosasaurs source

Sponsors:

This episode is brought to you by the Sternberg Museum of Natural History. They have amazing summer camps every year including field paleontology, paleoart, and virtual options. Find out more and sign up at https://bit.ly/camps23

The dinosaur of the day: Hanssuesia

• Pachycephalosaurid that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Alberta (Dinosaur Park Formation, Dinosaur Provincial Park, Oldman Formation) and Montana (Judith River Formation)
• Looked similar to Pachycephalosaurus, walked on two legs, had short arms, long tail, had a dome on top of the skull
• Estimated to be 7.9 ft (2.4 m) long
• Type species is Hanssuesia sternbergi
• Named based on a skull dome
• Had a thick skull roof, like other pachycephalosaurs
• Had unique features, including the front of the dome was as wide in the front as it was in the back
• Originally named Troodon sternbergi by Barnum Brown and Erich Schlaiker in 1943
• Found the holotype to represent a nearly fully adult individual
• Species name is in honor of Charles M. Sternberg, who found the fossil in 1928 in southern Alberta
• In the 1943 description, Brown and Schlaikjer wrote it was “A rather large species”
• In 1945, Charles M. Sternberg referred Troodon sternbergi to Stegoceras sternbergi
• Also has been referred to Gravitholus in the past
• Named by Robert Sullivan in 2003
• Genus name is in honor of paleontologist Hans-Dieter Sues for his work on pachycephalosaurs
• Sullivan mentioned that Stegoceras had, perhaps unintentionally, become a “wastebasket taxon” for small to medium sized pachycephalosaurs found in North America
• Note: Sullivan in the same paper where he named Hanssuesia also synonymized Ornatotholus with Stegoceras (so he both lumped and split)
• Sullivan wrote: “Brown and Schlaikjer (1943) were largely correct in their characterization and assessment of this taxon, and it is to their credit that the species is herein resurrected” (but it was hard to characterize until more specimens were found)
• Brown and Schlaikjer thought that there was individual variation, changes in growth, and differences in gender, within Stegoceras (hence the differences in the individuals found)
• Six referred specimens, in addition to the holotype, that are mostly frontoparietals (front of the skull)
• Still some debate about the validity of Hanssuesia
• Ryan Schott and David Evans had previously argued that Hanssuesia was Stegoceras, and that the differences in the dome were due to ontogeny (changed as it grew)
• In 2020, an abstract by Aaron D. Dyer, and Mark J. Powers in the Canadian Society of Vertebrate Paleontology suggested Gravitholus and Hanssuesia to be synonymous with Stegoceras

Fun Fact:

Garret’s favorite: It’s unlikely that dinosaurs had venom, but some of them may have been toxic. Sabrina’s favorite: Some dinosaurs had “belly buttons”.

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