Episode 258 is all about Anserimimus, The “goose mimic” from the Gobi Desert.

We also interview Karen Chin, Associate Professor of Geological Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder and Curator of Paleontology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, and she’s an expert in coprolites. Check out a video of her work here if you want to see more.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• News from the 3rd day of talks at the 2019 meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology source
  • Dinosaurs had many different skull, jaw muscle, and brain sizes, but we can only easily study the small group that survived the mass extinction
  • By using evo-devo we can now see how exactly bird skulls form around their brains
  • Non-avian Dinosaurs quickly evolved many different skulls and jaws, but they don’t always reflect their feeding strategies
  • We don’t see evidence of dinosaurs before the Carnian Pluvial Event, but fossil localities are limited
  • A new statistical approach may make it easier to separate male and female dinosaur fossils
  • Some quadrupedal dinosaurs had much larger hindfeet than front-feet, but the reason is still unclear
  • Massospondylus had very flexible growth rates, possibly indicating it was a “recovery taxa” taking advantage of the end Triassic extinction
  • New Triceratops excavations found rare remains beyond just the skull, allowing us to measure how they changed as they grew
  • Late cretaceous ceratopsian brains changed shape to allow for the massive neck muscles they needed to hold up their head
  • Australia has the best ankylosaurs from Gondwana including the new “Julia Creek” specimen
  • A new, larger, Liaoningosaurus fossil was found by a farmer in China
  • Microstructure of pachycephalosaur domes may show that they did but heads
• In Casper, Wyoming, the Tate Geological Museum now has Nicole the Torosaurus on display source
• The Natural History Museum in London is taking student applications to study ceratopsian phylogeny source
• Austria is releasing a set of 12 glow in the dark 3-euro dinosaur coins source
• Mattel Films is partnering with Daniel Kaluuya’s production company to make a live action Barney the dinosaur movie source
• Jurassic World 3 will star DeWanda Wise and Mamoudou Athie, and will bring back characters Ian Malcolm, Ellie Sattler, and Alan Grant will be in the film source

The dinosaur of the day: Anserimimus

• Ornithomimid theropod that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Mongolia
• Genus name means “goose mimic”
• Named in 1988 by Rinchen Barsbold
• Anser is the generic name for some species of geese
• Type and only species is Anserimimus planinychus
• Doesn’t particularly look like a goose, but other ornithomimosaurs have been named after other birds
• Species name means “flat claw” and refers to its flattened claws
• Only one specimen, which is a pretty complete, articulated skeleton (no skull and lower jaws)
• Found in the Gobi Desert in the 1970s on a joint Soviet-Mongolian expedition
• Estimated to be about 9.8 ft (3 m) long and weigh 110 lb (50 kg)
• Possibly an omnivore
• Probably looked similar to other ornithomimids, but with more powerful forelimbs
• Had long, powerful forelimbs
• Had large crests on the upper arm bones, to attach to large arm muscles, like biceps
• Had long, straight (with a slight curve) claws on the hand, that were pretty flat on the lower surface
• Not clear why it had such powerful arms. Possible it was to gather food, but the skull is unknown, so not clear what it ate
• Lanky and fast
• The five bones between the wrist and fingers (metacarpus) were fused, which added to its strength
• Also the foot was arctometatarsalian, which means the middle metatarsal is compressed and is behind the other two metatarsals at the top, which may also have helped it with running
• Probably lived around streams and river channels, mudflats, and shallow lakes
• Other dinosaurs that lived at the same time and place included Gallimimus, Tarbosaurus, Deinocheirus, and smaller dromaeosaurids, oviraptorosaurs, troodontids, and birds, as well as hadrosaurids like Barsboldia and Saurolophus, ankylosaurids like Tarchia, and some titanosaurs and pachycephalosaurs

Fun Fact: We have coprolites dating all the way back to the Cambrian period.