Episode 463: Raptors and Alexander the Great. A new large raptor, Utahraptor is much older than we thought, multiple connections between Alexander the Great and dinosaurs, a new titanosaurian sauropod, and more

News:

• There’s a new titanosaur sauropod, Jiangxititan ganzhouensis, with some of the strangest vertebrae of any sauropod source
• A new large dromaeosaurid from Northeast China which may have rivaled Achillobator in size source
• Utahraptor is 10 million years older than previously thought source
• Researchers are seeking to get the holotype of the spinosaurid Irritator returned to Brazil source
• Barry the Camptosaurus is going to auction in October source
• The Crystal Palace Park dinosaurs are now available as 3D models source

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The dinosaur of the day: Peloroplites

• Nodosaurid that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Utah, U.S. (Cedar Mountain Formation)
• Looked similar to Borealopelta
• Nodosaurid, so doesn’t have a club tail but walks on all fours, low to the ground, covered in armor
• One of the largest known nodosaurids
• Similar in size to Sauropelta
• Originally estimated to be about 16 to 18 ft (5 to 5.5 m) long
• In 2016, Gregory Paul estimated it was bigger
• Estimated to be about 20 ft (6 m) long and weigh 2 tonnes
• Skull estimated to be about 22 in (56 cm) long
• Not known how many vertebrae it had
• Covered in scutes and spikes
• May have had large spikes on its neck and shoulders
• Had a relatively long snout
• Had robust jaws
• Had large teeth
• May have eaten tough plants
• Had a robust pelvis
• Had stout legs
• Ulna, the lower leg bone, was long and straight
• Ankle bone, the astragalus, wasn’t fused to the shin
• Type and only species is Peloroplites cedrimontanus
• Genus name means “monstrous heavy one”
• Name also comes from hoplites, “meaning heavily armed”
• Named because it’s like a heavily armed soldier
• Species name refers to the Cedar Mountain Formation
• Named from a partial skull and skeleton
• Named in 2008 by Kenneth Carpenter and others
• Fossils mentioned in a publication in 2001 by Burge and Bird, in a paper about the animals of Price River II quarry
• More fossils found and then Kenneth Carpenter and others described and named the dinosaur in 2008
• More fossils assigned to Peloroplites include vertebrae, parts of the feet, legs, osteoderms, parts of the pelvis, parts of the shoulder, arms, and other fragments
• Fossils are red and gray
• Fossils are at the College of Eastern Utah’s Prehistoric Museum in Price, Utah
• Unique features include not having premaxillary teeth (tip of the snout), having small, blunt squamosal horns (back of the skull), and other details in the bones including in the back
• Found all the hand bones
• Philip Senter in 2011 suggested that the hands of Peloroplites and other ankylosaurs were positioned in a way similar to sauropods
• Lived in a wet environment, either with lakes or rivers
• Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place included the ankylosaur Cedarpelta, the hadrosauroid Eolambia, the brachiosaurid Abydosaurus, Deinonychus, the tyrannosauroid Moros, coelurosaurs, the allosauroid Seats
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place included crocodilians, amphibians, fish, pterosaurs, and mammals

Fun Fact:

The Dakotaraptor is at least partially a chimera, meaning it’s a mixture of different animals that were first thought to come from one individual.

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