Episode 437: The first long-necked dinosaur. Even before Macrocollum and Plateosaurus there was another sauropodomorph that already had a long neck; Plus titanosaurs with injured tails; And David & Will join to discuss when dinosaurs evolved hollow bones

News:

• The oldest “long-necked” dinosaur was identified from new material in Southern Brazil source
• Two titanosaurs in Gondwana had injuries in their tails source
• Different dinosaur groups may have independently evolved pneumaticity (hollow bones) source

Interview:

David and Will, paleontologists, science communicators, and the podcasters behind Common Descent, which is all about the fascinating diversity of life, past and present. They also have a patreon at patreon.com/commondescentpodcast

Sponsors:

You can dig up real dinosaur bones this summer with Colorado Northwestern Community College! Join them for a two week immersive field paleontology experience digging up dinosaur bones from the Jurassic period in Northwest Colorado. There are two scheduled digs: May 27–June 11 and July 1–July 16. There are also two concurrent immersive lab techniques programs available. Get all the details and register online at cncc.edu/dinodig

The dinosaur of the day: Sinotyrannus

• Basal tyrannosauroid that lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Liaoning Province, China (Jiufotang Formation)
• Part of Proceratosauridae, a family that started in the Jurassic and lived in what is now Europe and Asia
• Looked somewhat similar to Yutyrannus
• Large theropod, walked on two legs, had an elongated head, long tail, and sharp teeth and claws
• May have had a tall nasal crest, like other proceratosaurids
• In paleoart, often depicted as feathery
• Estimated to be about 29.5 to 33 ft (9 to 10 m) long and weigh about 1.5 tons
• Similar in size to later large tyrannosaurs (from the Late Cretaceous)
• Largest known theropod from the Jiufotang Formation
• First large theropod known from the Jehol Biota
• Skull about 3.3 ft (1 m) long
• Had large nostrils, one of its unique features
• Had a “massive and very tall” neural spine that “is primarily vertical”, according to the paper describing the dinosaur
• Type species is Sinotyrannus kazuoensis
• Genus name means “Chinese tyrant”
• Genus name Sino is an ancient name of China
• Species name refers to Kazuo, the county where the fossils were found
• Described in 2009 by Ji Qiang and others
• Found an incomplete, disarticulated skeleton including parts of the skull and jaws, some teeth, part of the pelvis, some ribs, vertebrae, and other fragments
• Originally thought to possibly be the earliest member of the family Tyrannosauridae, and help show that tyrannosaurids may have originated in what is now East Asia in the Early Cretaceous and then later spread to North America
• Later, was found to be a proceratosaurid tyrannosauroid
• However, helped show that tyrannosauroids were large in the Early Cretaceous, and not just the Late Cretaceous
• In 2016, Steve Brusatte and Thomas Carr, in a paper about the phylogeny and evolutionary history of tyrannosauroids, found Sinotyrannus to be a sister taxon of Yutyrannus, and not close relatives of Tyrannosaurus or Albertosaurus
• Had a more shallow, less robust skull than Tyrannosaurus, and smaller jaw muscles and thinner teeth
• According to Brusatte and Carr, “With its gaudy midline skull crest, huge external naris and proportionally long arms, Yutyrannus (and probably Sinotyrannus) resemble overgrown versions of Guanlong, not proto-tyrannosaurids”
• Though Sinotyrannus and Yutyrannus were on the large side, especially for the Early Cretaceous, Brusatte and Carr said “colossal size (>10 metres in body length, >1.5 tons in mass) came much later, first appearing in the Campanian, ca. 80 million years ago, although this observation is probably clouded by sampling biases”

Fun Fact:

The Late Triassic is most of the Triassic.

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