Episode 468: What to feed a dinosaur. Ali Nabavizadeh, expert in dinosaur feeding biology, joins us to discuss which modern foods different dinosaurs could eat. Plus a new Triceratops frill that was chewed on by a T. rex

News:

• An undergraduate student found one of the largest theropod fossils in the eastern U.S. source
• There’s a potential new certificate of paleontology for undergrads at Utah State University source
• New evidence of Tyrannosaurus biting Triceratops right on the frill source
• Hadrosaurs may have had muscles for chewing (not just biting and swallowing things whole) source
• Words matter, and scientific names can have an impact on how something is perceived source
• Researchers analyzed paleontology documentaries source
• Why Dinosaurs? documentary had its Hollywood premiere source

Interview:

Ali Nabavizadeh, a paleontologist, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, and author of the recently published book “An Illustrated Guide to Dinosaur Feeding Biology”. Follow him on twitter or Instagram @Vert_Anatomist

Sponsors:

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The dinosaur of the day: Liaoceratops

• Ceratopsian that lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Liaoning Province, China (Yixian Formation)
• Small, walked on two legs
• May have looked somewhat similar to Psittacosaurus, but with a short frill on its head
• Described as hare-sized
• Estimated to be about 1.6 ft (50 cm) long and weighed 4.4 lb (2 kg)
• Estimated to be about 1 ft tall (0.3 m)
• Holotype skull was about 6 in (154 mm) long
• Skull similar in size to Psittacosaurus
• Only skulls found so far
• No horns
• Had small neck frill
• Had a small horn that faced sideways under each of its eyes, which was small and light, so may have been for display
• Had pitted surface texture on the edges of the frill that show there were jaw muscles that went behind the cheek and attached to the frill, which was thick
• Ate plants, such as possibly ginkgo, horsetails, or conifers, which have been found nearby
• Sliced and sheared its food, instead of grinding
• Probably hid or ran away when it needed to defend itself
• Early relative of ceratopsids
• Part of the branch (Neoceratopsia) that led to ceratopsians like Triceratops (another different branch includes Psittacosaurus)
• Helps show the early evolution of ceratopsians and that the split happened at least by the Early Cretaceous, about 130 million years ago
• Helps show that the large ceratopsians like Triceratops evolved from small ancestors, and that ceratopsians got some of their distinct features early and more quickly then scientists previously thought
• Named in 2002 by Xu Xing and others
• Type species is Liaoceratops yanzigouensis
• Genus name means “Liaoning horned face”
• Species name refers to the town Yanzigou
• Holotype includes a nearly complete subadult skull
• Other skulls found, including a juvenile skull and an even younger partial skull and jaw from a smaller individual (no skull roof, or braincase, or left cheek region, which could be due to a, probably small, predator eating its brain)
• Thought to be a small predator because when small owls like screech owls go after prey, they “dismember the carcass small bite by small bite” compared to great horned owls that swallow mice whole, according to You Hailu and others
• One of the juvenile skulls is about half as long as the holotype
• A 2023 study of the inside of the skull found that Liaoceratops had a relatively large olfactory bulb, so probably had a good sense of smell, and had other details that suggest it had a stable gaze and kept its head nearly horizontal
• Also found that it had relatively short cochlear ducts, so probably could hear relatively high frequencies
• And found evidence suggesting that adult Liaoceratops was agile on two legs and moved similarly to an adult Psittacosaurus
• A study of the teeth of Liaoceratops in 2018 found that it replaced teeth with progressively larger teeth as it grew to keep up with its growing jaws
• Also found evidence of the beginnings of dental batteries, or at least traits that led to the evolution of dental batteries
• Lived in a wet, humid climate with dry seasons, and an average yearly temperature of 50 degrees F (10 degrees C)
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place include insects, and many dinosaurs such as Psittacosaurus, troodontids Mei (the sleeping one), Sinovenator, and Daliansaurus, dromaeosaur Graciliraptor, the oviraptorosaur Incisivosaurus, the ornithomimosaur Shenzhousaurus, mammals, amphibians, fish
• Also found flowering plants

Fun Fact:

Triceratops had muscles running partially up the front of its frill, similar to our temporal muscles.

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