Episode 470: Life on Our Planet review and a new sleeping alvarezsaurid. We discuss all the VFX dinosaurs from Netflix’s Life on Our Planet. Plus a remarkably complete new chest-clawed alvarezsaurid that fossilized while curled up sleeping
News:
- A new alvarezsaurid, Jaculinykus, which is named after a “javelin snake” dragon from Greek mythology source
- A review of Netflix’s Life on Our Planet, how they made the show, which scientific details they got right, and our favorite dinosaur reconstructions
Sponsors:

Our 2023 Holiday Gift Guide is available now! Find the perfect gift for the dinosaur enthusiast in your life (or yourself). This year’s guide features a LEGO Therizinosaurus, real dinosaur teeth, a brand new dinosaur encyclopedia, board games, decorations, jewelry, and more! Head to iknowdino.com/the-ultimate-dinosaur-holiday-gift-guide/ to see the full list of gift ideas.
The dinosaur of the day: Turanoceratops
- Ceratopsian that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Uzbekistan (Bissekty Formation)
- Small, with a short frill and two long horns on its brow, a beak, a long-ish tail, and walked on all fours
- No nasal horn
- Relatively small, and estimated to be about 6.5 ft (2 m) long and weigh 385 lb (175 kg)
- Probably ate ferns and conifers and would have used its beak to bite off leaves and needles
- Not a ceratopsid (which includes the subfamilies chasmosaurines and centrosaurines, and includes dinosaurs like Triceratops), but transitional between earlier ceratopsians and ceratopsids
- Compared to larger ceratopsids, only have two or three teeth in each vertical dental file (instead of four or five)
- But did have long brow horns
- Had double rooted teeth
- Found to be more advanced though than Zuniceratops, the earliest known horned dinosaur in North America
- Looked similar to Zuniceratops
- Fragmentary fossils found starting in the 1920s, and scientists thought there was some sort of ceratopsid in the area
- Lev Nessov published the name Turanoceratops tardabilis in 1988, but didn’t describe the dinosaur so it was a nomen nudum for a while
- Officially named in 1989 by Nessov and others
- Type species is Turanoceratops tardabilis
- Genus name means “Turan horned face”
- Turan is an old Persian name for Turkestan
- Species name means “slowing” and refers to the research taking a long time to name the dinosaur
- Holotype is a damaged left upper jaw bone
- Holotype was broken into two tightly fitting pieces
- Other fossils found include brow horn cores, parts of the limbs and feet, teeth, part of the lower jaw, part of the skull
- Other fossils referred to Turanoceratops but turned out to belong to other dinosaurs
- One was a braincase, which belonged to a sauropod
- Another was what was thought to be part of the frill, but turned out to be armor from an ankylosaur
- Some paleontologists considered Turanoceratops to be a nomen dubium but Hans Sues in 2009 said it was valid
- Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place included the ankylosaur Bissektipelta, theropods such as Caenagnathasia, the alvarezsaur Dzharaonyx, the dromaeosaur Itemirus, the tyrannosauroid Timurlengia, sauropods such as Dzharatitanis, and enantiornithines
- Other animals that lived around the same time and place included turtles, molluscs, fish, plesiosaurs, mammals, pterosaurs, lizards, crocodylomorphs, and amphibians
Fun Fact:
Collage (or compositing) techniques can help make great paleoart.
Thank you Patrons!
Your support means so much to us and keeps us going! If you’re a dinosaur enthusiast, join our growing community on Patreon at patreon.com/iknowdino