Episode 390: How dinosaurs evolved flight. We explore the radical transformation that dinosaurs went through to become birds.

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The dinosaur of the day: Pyroraptor

• Will be in Jurassic World: Dominion
• Colin Trevorrow mentioned in an interview he likes Pyroraptors
• Pyroraptor is also in the games Jurassic World: Alive and Jurassic World: The Game (and has feathers)
• Dromaeosaurid that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Provence, France (La Boucharde locality) and northern Spain (Vitória Formation and the Tremp Group)
• Feathered raptor with a long, thin tail
• Had large claws on the second toes of its feet
• Claws were 2.5 in (6.5 cm) long
• Estimated to be about 5 ft (1.5 m) long and weigh 17 to 22 lb (8 to 10 kg) (rough estimate, hard to say based on fossil evidence)
• Type species is Pyroraptor olympius
• Genus name means “fire thief”
• Fossils found after a forest fire
• Species name refers to Mont Olympe, a mountain in Provence near where the fossils were found
• A single partial skeleton found in 1992
• Described in 2000 by Ronan Allain and Philippe Taquet
• Holotype is the second toe claw of the left foot
• Other specimens include the claw on the right foot, a right ulna (forearm bone), two teeth, vertebrae, and digits
• Two teeth found were flattened and curved backwards, and serrated
• First dromaeosaur fossils found in France were Variraptor (previously thought to be Megalosaurus pannoniensis)
• Allain and Taquet said that Variraptor was a nomen dubium, based on the fossils being poorly preserved and the holotype having no distinguishing features
• In 2009, Buffetaut and Phomphen Chanthasit found Variraptor to be valid, based on the different shapes of the ulnas (lower arm bones)
• May have used claws as weapons or to help climb
• In 2005, Phillip Manning and others modeled a dromaeosaur hindlimb to study how they used their claws
• Built a robotic limb with a hydraulic arm, and based the model on the second digit and claw on an articulated foot of Deinonychus antirrhopus
• Created a claw with an aluminum core and a thin composite sheath of Kevlar and carbon fiber strands
• Tested kicking in a fleshy substrate (fresh pig carcass) and crocodile flesh (though dermal armor protected the crocodile flesh and broke the tip of the claw)
• Did high and low speeds (low (2 m/s) and high (11 m/s) speed)
• Found that it produced small, round puncture wounds (no slashing/cutting) could have killed smaller animals but wouldn’t have been too effective against larger dinosaurs
• May have used claws “as climbing crampons”, where it leapt onto prey, gripped with claws (established footholds) and then inflicted wounds though lots of bites
• Being hooked on, if the prey turned to attack, it would also be turned by and with the prey
• Called it a “fatal embrace,” similar to big cats that dig claws in to cling to prey and use jaws to kill it
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place include the ornithopod Rhabdodon priscus, nodosaurids, titanosaurids, certaosaurians, turtles, alligatorids
• Can also see Pyroraptor in the TV series Dinosaur Planet (Pyroraptor Pod gets stranded on an island after a tsunami, and contacts dwarf dinosaurs like Magyarosaurus and Tarascosaurus)

Fun Fact:

Two facts about flight:

1) The largest hummingbird is the Giant hummingbird at about 20 grams (under an ounce).

2) Humans have achieved “human powered flight” in specialized airplanes powered by bicycle-driven propellers as well as briefly in a giant flapping contraption.

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