Episode 405: Theropods biting with Evan Johnson-Ransom. EJR joins us to discuss theropods biting, his master’s thesis, and upcoming work at the Field Museum in Chicago

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Interview:

Evan Johnson-Ransom, a PhD student at the Ross Lab and Sereno Lab at the University of Chicago, studying neck kinematics and feeding behavior of spinosaurids, T. rex, and other theropods. Follow him on twitter @EJR_Paleo_MSc

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The dinosaur of the day: Unescoceratops

• Ceratopsian that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Alberta, Canada
• Looked kind of like Psittacosaurus, walked on four legs, had a short face with a beak, and quills (feathers?) on the tail
• Small, estimated to be 3 to 6.5 ft (1 to 2 m) long and weigh 200 lb (97 kg)
• Herbivorous, and probably ate low vegetation (no more than 3 ft or 1 m high)
• Had round teeth
• Had a parrot-like beak
• Had a hatchet-shaped jaw
• Had a short frill, but no ornamentation on the skull
• Type species is Unescoceratops koppelhusae
• Fossil found in 1995
• Holotype is a partial left lower jaw
• The holotype was found at a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Dinosaur Provincial Park)
• Referred specimen is a partial right lower jaw fragment
• Thought to be too incomplete to describe for a few years, and was thought to belong to Leptoceratops
• Ryan and Currie first reported on the fossil in 1998, as Leptoceratops sp.
• Described in 2012 by Michael Ryan and others, and found to be one of the most advanced leptoceratopsids
• Genus name means “UNESCO’s ceratopsian” or “UNESCO’s horned face”
• Genus name is in honor of UNESCO’s efforts to increase our understanding of natural history sites
• Species name in honor of Eva Koppelhus
• Had same number of tooth sockets as the holotype of Zhuchengceratops
• In 2013, Jordan Mallon and others looked at how herbivorous dinosaurs in Dinosaur Park Formation fed
• Found most species ate food about 3 ft (1 m) from the ground, no matter how much they weighed
• Unescoceratops probably couldn’t reach above 1.6 ft (0.5) m while on all fours, but could rear up to 1 m (3 ft), similar to other small ornithischians in the area
• Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place include ankylosaurs, ceratopsians, hadrosaurs, theropods
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place include amphibians, crocodilians, lizards, fish, plesiosaurs, mammals

Fun Fact:

There are up to 15 known genera in Spinosauridae.

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