Episode 309 is all about Pararhabdodon, a hadrosaurid from Spain that’s a close relative of Tsintaosaurus.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• The Dinosaur Systematics Diversity & Ecology session of SVP covered a new African titanosaur, paleopathologies, skin impressions, and much more source
• A 12-year-old in the Badlands of Alberta, Canada, found a humerus from a juvenile hadrosaur while hiking source
• An article describes a method that could keep Stan the T. rex available to the public source
• The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis is working on renovations to redesign the area around Dinosphere source
• Near Golden, Colorado, artist Pat Madison created a family of colorful Triceratops sculptures source
• The Mace Brown Museum of Natural History in Charleston, SC has new Triceratops and T. rex skull casts source
• The Glasgow dinosaur in Virginia is getting renovated source
• The grandson of the artist who created Sinclair’s Dinoland has proposed a restoration of one of the sculptures source
• A dinosaur park may open in Wallkill, New York source

The dinosaur of the day: Pararhabdodon

• Hadrosaurid dinosaur that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Spain (Tremp Group)
• Probably bipedal-quadrupedal
• Herbivorous
• Estimated to be about 20 ft (6 m) long as an adult
• Had a tall back (tall neural spines), like other hadrosaurids
• Casanovas-Cladellas, Santafé-Llopis, and Isidro-Llorens named Pararhabdodon isonense in 1993
• Genus name means “Near Rhabdodon”
• Genus name means “near fluted tooth”
• Originally thought to be rhabdodontid or primitive iguanodontian, found in the Sant Romà d’Abella fossil locality
• Species name changed/corrected to isonensis in 1997 by Laurent and others
• Species name refers to Isona
• First excavated in 1985 at the Sant Romà d’Abella (SRA) locality (in the Pyrenees near Isona, Lleida, Spain)
• Found postcranial remains (vertebrae) and the maxillae
• Other material has been referred, but now that material is thought to be from other dinosaurs
• Described as an ornithopod from Catalonia in 1987 by Casanoveas-Cladellas and others (including cervical vertebra, humerus, fragmentary scapula)
• Scapula (shoulder bone) had a narrow “neck” but could be the way it was preserved
• In 1990, more fossils found, and the material was looked at again, and then named in 1993
• Most material thought to belong to one individual, which became the holotype
• Cervical, humerus, and ulna designated as the paratype
• In 1994 more material found (including maxillae, dorsal vertebrae, sacrum, fragmentary ribs, partial ischium)
• New material, including parts of the skull, let to Casanovas-Cladellas and others reclassifying it as a hadrosaurid
• Later some debate over whether it was a lambeosaurine. As of 2009 thought to be lambeosaurine and closely related to Tsintaosaurus (dinosaur from Wangshi Group of Shandong, China, named in 1958)
• Now part of the group Tsintaosaurini (basal lambeosaurines from Eurasia)
• Poster from 2020 SVP: The osteohistology of Pararhabdodon isonensis sheds light into the life history and paleoecology of this enigmatic European lambeosaurine dinosaur by Jesus Serrano and others. They found a femur, tibia, fibula, & heamal arch (bony arch on the ventral *underside* side of a tail vertebra of a vertebrate) of Pararhabdodon, which confirms it’s a close relative of Tsintaosaurus. Did histology and found it was a sub-adult with a relatively low growth rate. Also found it to be similar in size to other European lambeosaurines
• Lots of referred material to Pararhabdodon over the years
• In 1997, Laurent and others referred fossils found in southern France to Pararhabdodon. However, other scientists thought the material was too fragmentary to determine if it was Pararhabdodon. Also found one of the fossils, the humerus, was too distinct and belonged to a different taxon. Other fossils found in France, described in 2003, were originally thought to be Pararhabdodon but in 2013 became part of a new taxon, Canardia garonnensis
• A maxilla was referred to Pararhabdodon in 2013, but in 2019 later thought to be a close relative instead
• A hadrosaur bone bed, the Basturs Poble bonebed, found in the Conques Formation in the late 1990s is thought to be Pararhabdodon, but the fossils don’t have tsintaosaurin characteristics and there’s not enough material to compare to Pararhabdodon, so now may be indeterminate lambeosaur fossils. Bonebed included juveniles and adults, with more juveniles than adults
• In 2006, Albert Prieto-Márquez and others named a new dinosaur, Koutalisaurus kohlerorum (genus name means “spoon lizard”), based on a dentary found near the original Pararhabdodon locality. However, no teeth preserved though there are 35 tooth positions and it was found to be unique compared to other hadrosaur dentaries, but the fossils are fragmentary so they said it was possible if more fossils are found it could be synonymized with Pararhabdodon
• In 2009, Prieto-Márquez and Jonathan Wagner analyzed and compared Pararhabdodon, Koutalisaurus, and Tsintaosaurus. Found that what was thought to distinguish Koutalisaurus (edentulous slope, lacking teeth) was also in Tsintaosaurus. However, they lived too far apart from each other to be thought to be synonymous. Could have said Koutalisaurus was a nomen dubium, but unless another dinosaur that looked the same was found in the area, it’s possible Koutalisaurus really was unique for its area. So they kept it distinct and as a relative of Tsintaosaurus. However, they also found some same traits in Pararhabdodon and Tsintaosaurus. Since both Pararhabdodon and Koutalisaurus had similarities to Tsintaosaurus, they decided to treat Pararhabdodon and Koutalisaurus as one
• In 2013, Prieto-Márquez and others looked again at the Koutalisaurus dentary. Since then more preparation had been down on the fossil, and the study found that the uniqueness of that dentary was very exaggerated from it was first prepared. The same goes for Tsintaosaurus. So now the dentary is not distinguishable from multiple lambeosaurines, and not particularly connected to Tsintaosaurus. So it’s now considered to be an indeterminate lambeosaurine dentary.

Fun Fact: T. rex had a very small partial third finger.

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