Episode 447: Dinosaurs in North America: Featuring Prehistoric Planet 2. 80 ton Alamosaurus, Tyrannosaurus losing to Quetzalcoatlus, and sauropods being killed by lightning (but not for the reason you think)

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The dinosaur of the day: Pectinodon

• Appears in episode 5 of Prehistoric Planet, season 2
• Troodontid that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Wyoming (Lance Formation)
• Probably looked bird-like, with feathers, long legs, and being a troodontid, had sickle claws on the second toes (only know its teeth)
• As a troodontid, may have had good vision and may have gone after small prey
• Type and only species is Pectinodon bakkeri
• Genus name means “comb tooth”
• Genus name refers to the comb-like serrations on the teeth
• Species name in honor of Bob Bakker
• Described in 1982 by Kenneth Carpenter
• In 1982, Kenneth Carpenter named Pectinodon in a paper about baby dinosaurs from the Lance and Hell Creek Formations
• Studied eleven taxa from nine localities, based on small teeth and parts of skulls that were found by screen-washing (underwater washing and screening)
• Helped show that baby dinosaurs weren’t as rare as had been previously thought before that point
• Holotype of Pectinodon is a tooth, paratypes and referred specimens are teeth
• Found “crowns of teeth strongly compressed laterally and recurved”
• Described as an apparently small species, weighing under 220 lb (100 kg)
• Holotype is an adult tooth, the largest tooth, and is 6.2 mm long and 3.7 mm wide (about 0.2 in by 0.1 in)
• Paratypes are small and probably from babies
• Other referred teeth are from adults
• Teeth look similar to Saurornithoides inequalis (previously referred to Troodon formosus and Saurornithoides junior)
• Said the teeth looks similar to Velociraptor teeth, but some slight differences in the serrations
• Has been considered to be synonymous with Troodon formosus
• In 1991 George Olshevsky found it to be its own species, Troodon bakkeri
• In 2011, Lindsay Zanno and others analyzed how troodontids were classified, and found all the specimens assigned to Troodon formosus were probably different species, and agreed Pectinodon bakkeri was valid
• In 2008, Longrich found Pectinodon to be valid
• In 2013 Phil Currie and Derek Larson also found Pectinodon to be valid, and said the teeth could be found in both the Lance Formation and Hell Creek Formation
• Other teeth from Dinosaur Park Formation were referred to cf. Pectinodon (hard to classify specifically)
• In 1985 Lev Nesov named a second species, Pectinodon asiamericanus, based on a tooth found in Uzbekistan, but it’s considered to be a nomen dubium

Fun Fact:

Sauropods would have been really vulnerable to lightning strikes, and not just because they’re so tall.

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