Episode 428: Could sauropods have farmed? Plus three new dinosaurs: A sauropod and theropod from Pakistan and a basal iguanodontian from Southern China.

News:

• Two new dinosaurs, the sauropod Khanazeem and the theropod Shansaraiki, were recently (mostly) described from Pakistan source
• The first basal Iguanodontian from Southern China, Napaisaurus, was recently described source
• A hiker found sauropod bones in the Royal Gorge Region of Colorado source
• “Big John” the Triceratops is going to the Glazer Children’s Museum in Tampa, Florida source

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The dinosaur of the day: Camarillasaurus

• Spinosaurid that lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Teruel Province, Spain (Camarillas Formation)
• Hard to say how it looked since only a few fossils have been found, but as a spinosaur, would have had a long snout, long tail, and probably walked on two legs (at least depicted that way in paleoart)
• Type species is Camarillasaurus cirugedae
• Genus name means “Camarillas lizard”
• Species name is in honor of the person who found the fossils, Pedro Cirugeda Buj
• Described in 2014 by Barbara Sánchez-Hernández and Michael Benton
• Fossils found include a tooth, isolated vertebrae, ribs, and parts of the limb
• Fossils were disarticulated but found close together
• Also found a possible neck vertebra, that was later found to be too small to be part of the same Camarillasaurus specimen, or even belong “to the same taxon as Camarillasaurus”, according to Samathi and others in 2021
• Originally thought to be a ceratosaur, then thought to be a spinosaur as of 2021
• When Camarillasaurus was thought to be a ceratosaur, it was significant because it helped fill in the gap (ceratosaurs known from the Middle and Late Jurassic, and then the Late Cretaceous, and Camarillasaurus lived in the Early Cretaceous)
• Oliver Rauhut and others suggested Camarillasaurus was a spinosaur in 2019 based on its tail vertebrae and after comparing it to new fossils found where Camarillasaurus was found
• In 2021, Adun Samathi and others tentatively agreed (found Camarillasaurus to be a megalosauroid and possibly a spinosaur), and also found similarities between Camarillasaurus and spinosaur fossils found in Thailand
• Need more fossils to know for sure
• For example, found tail vertebrae in Thailand that looked similar to Baryonyx, based on grooves and depressions in the bones
• Samathi and others found the evidence for Camarillasaurus being a ceratosaur to be “dubious and limited”, and that the original paper describing Camarillasaurus didn’t cite features unique to ceratosaurs, and many of the features described are seen in tetanuran theropods and some were misinterpreted or misidentified
• One of four spinosaurs known from the Iberian peninsula, in Spain and Portugal: Camarillasaurus, Baryonyx, Vallibonavenatrix, Iberospinus
• Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place included sauropods, dromaeosaurs, ornithischians
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place included turtles, snakes, fish, mammals, and crocodilians

Fun Fact:

The first sauropod ever put on display was the Apatosaurus (or maybe Brontosaurus) at the American Museum of Natural History.

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