Episode 409: A huge new spinosaur and a tiny thyreophoran. A new dinosaur that looks like a tiny Carnotaurus covered in armor, another dinosaur that might be the largest theropod from Europe, and we name a carnivore and herbivore for every letter of the alphabet

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News:

• A new thyreophoran that looks like a miniature, armored, Carnotaurus was found in Argentina source
• A new, very large spinosaur was discovered on the Isle of Wight in England source
• Spinosaurids replaced teeth very quickly, which is probably why we’ve found so many source
• Oxford University Museum of Natural History is re-running a lecture J.R.R. Tolkien gave in 1938 about dragonlore and dinosaurs source
• The Field Museum in Chicago recently got a new hadrosaur dinosaur fossil source
• Another dinosaur, Zephyr, is going to auction next month source
• A student at Southern Methodist University in Texas makes dinosaur origami source
• There’s a new trailer for Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur source

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The dinosaur of the day: Microvenator

• Oviraptorosaurian theropod that lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Montana, U.S. (Cloverly Formation)
• Looked kind of like Oviraptor, walked on two legs, had a long tail, long arms with large claws
• Estimated to be 4.3 ft (1.3 m) long
• Holotype (AMNH 3041) is most likely a juvenile, based on some unfused bones
• Adult probably grew larger
• Fossils found in 1933 by Barnum Brown as part of a field party from the American Museum of Natural History, who thought Deinonychus teeth also was part of the holotype
• Brown informally called it Megadontosaurus, which means “big-toothed lizard”
• Brown drew illustrations of the dinosaur but never published about it
• Fossils found include a partial skull, right lower jaw, 23 vertebrae (including parts of the tail), ribs, partial left arm, partial pelvis, partial hindlimbs, left coracoid (part of the shoulder)
• Named by John Ostrom in 1970
• Type species is Microvenator celer
• Full name means “swift small hunter”
• Named for its long legs
• Ostrom also tentatively referred a tooth to Microvenator, but that tooth is probably from Deinonychus
• In 1998, Mackovicky and Sues published a monograph with Brown’s illustrations and confirmed Microvenator was an oviraptorosaurian (and that the tooth was not part of it)
• Unique features include some of the vertebrae near and on the tail were wider than high, a crest on the femur, and a deep, oval depression on part of the pubis
• Probably didn’t have teeth
• Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place include Rugocaudia (basal titanosauriform), Sauroposeidon (sauropod), Aquilops (ceratopsian), Zephyrosaurus (ornithischian), Acrocanthosaurus (carcharodontosaurid)

Fun Fact:

We can name a carnivorous and herbivorous dinosaur for every letter of the alphabet.

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