In our 167th episode, we got to chat with Dr. Alexander Hastings. He is the assistant curator of paleontology at the Virginia Museum of Natural History, and his research interests include the evolutionary relationship between temperature and body size in ectothermic animals, factors that influenced turnover and extinction in fossil predators, and evolutionary adaptations to new environments. Follow him on Twitter @Dr_CrocoGator and learn more at paleolab.org.

Episode 167 is also about Xenotarsosaurus, an abelisaurid whose name means “strange tarsus lizard.”

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• New titanosaur Mansourasaurus found in Egypt
• Scientists analyzed tail weaponization in ankylosaurs and other animals
• The Natural History Museum in London has created a 3D model of Dippy the Diplodocus‘ skull
• Jurassic World is getting a live arena show
• Dinosaur Journey Museum in Fruita, Colorado, will get a digitization lab
• In Idaho Falls, the Museum of Idaho has a new exhibit: Dinosaurs in Motion: Where Art and Science Meet
• The Long Island Children’s Museum in New York has a new traveling exhibit, called Dinosaurs: Land of Fire and Ice
• The Arkansas Museum of Discovery has a new exhibit called Dinosaurs: Fossils Exposed
• You can see a dinosaur sculpture at Heathrow airport at Terminal 5
• The iconic Flintstone house in Hillsborough, California, has some new dinosaurs
• New dinosaur gift: Calamityware Gang’s-All-Here porcelain dinosaur platter
• Hasbro has a new toy coming out, including an animatronic broccoli eating dinosaur
• Kids can hatch dinosaurs with Nurchums eggs
• There’s a new dinosaur game, Monster Hunter: World
• A newly wed couple in New Zealand photoshopped dinosaurs into their wedding photos

Don’t forget! From now until Valentine’s Day, February 14, join our awesome community on Patreon and we’ll thank you with an audio special from our Top 10 Dinosaurs series.

The dinosaur of the day: Xenotarsosaurus

• • Abelisaurid that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Argentina
  • Name means “strange tarsus lizard”
  • Juan Carlos Sciutto found theropod remains at a fossil site in Chubut province in 1980
  • Later, José Fernando Bonaparte and a team found more theropod bones, potentially from the same individual
  • Described in 1986 by Ricardo Martínez, Olga Giménez, Jorge Rodríguez and Graciela Bochatey
  • Only one species: Xenotarsosaurus bonapartei
  • Species name in honor of José Bonaparte
  • Only known fossils so far are of a right hind limb, dorsal vertebrae, femur, tibia, fibula, and part of the ankle
  • Had a complete fusion between two of the bones of the ankle, which is unusual for a theropod (and led to its name)
  • Estimated to be 18 ft (5.4 m) long
  • Had some similarities to Carnotaurus sastrei, so scientists assigned it to Abelisauridae, though some think it’s an indeterminate neoceratosaurian theropod
  • Probably one of the main predators of its area, and may have preyed on Secerosaurus, a hadrosaurid, and Drusilasaura, a titanosaur

Fun Fact:

T. rex would likely eat humans if we were around at the same time. We’re about 1% their weight, which is similar to a typical human meal (for a 150 pound person, that’s a 24oz steak). And even if we were too small for an adult T. rex, a juvenile would still eat us.

Sponsor:

This episode is brought to you in part by TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and exhibits. You can see some amazing examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs.