The Big Dinosaur Podcast

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

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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.

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Episode 469: A mammoth episode. Mammoths are elephantids that ranged from some of the largest mammals ever to walk the Earth to about the size of a pig

This special bonus episode of I Know Paleo features our animal of the day Mammuthus, with a focus on the Woolly Mammoth, one of the largest (and hairiest) mammals ever to walk the Earth.

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The dinosaur of the day: Mammuthus

• Not to be confused with mastodons, which are distant relatives
• Mammoths known for their long, curved tusks
• Lived from the Pliocene, around 5 million years ago, to the Holocene, about 4,000 years ago
• Lived in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America
• Multiple species. Currently 10 (mostly focused on the woolly mammoth for this featured elephantid segment). But first…
• Different species known based on the number of enamel ridges on their molars (earlier species had few ridges)
• Later mammoths also had longer crowns of their teeth and the skulls were taller in height and also shorter in length
• Oldest known mammoth is Mammuthus subplanifrons, that lived in the early Pliocene in what’s now southern and Eastern Africa
• Largest known mammoth species weighed 12 to almost 16 tons, and were about 13 to almost 15 ft (4 to 4.5 m) tall at the shoulder
• But most mammoth species were similar in size to modern Asian elephants, weighing 3 to 6 tons
• Columbian mammoth in La Brea tarpits
• There were some dwarf mammoths
• One dwarf mammoth was Mammuthus lamarmorai, which lived on the Mediterranean islands in the late Middle and Late Pleistocene, and estimated to be 4.6 ft (1.4 m) tall at the shoulder, and estimated to weigh between 930 to 3,640 lb (420 to 1,650 kg)
• Another was Mammuthus columbi, that lived on the Channel Islands of California at the end of the Pleistocene
• Channel Island mammoths were between almost 5 ft to more than 6 ft (1.5 to 1.9 m) tall at the shoulder
• Also the pygmy mammoth, Mammuthus exilis
• And Mammuthus creticus, which lived in the Early or Middle Pleistocene in Crete, and was estimated to be about 3.3 ft (1 m) tall at the shoulder and weighed 400 lb (180 kg)
• The last species is Mammuthus primigenius, the woolly mammoth
• Woolly mammoth lived about 400,000 years ago up until about 4,000 years ago
• Most woolly mammoths died out about 10,000 years ago, but some populations survived until about 4,000 years ago. Will talk more about woolly mammoths later
• Many mammoth specimens have been found
• One site, known as the Mammoth Site (in Hot Springs, South Dakota in the Black Hills), where mammoths found had bones from at least 61 individuals. Probably there was a sinkhole filled with water from a hot spring (lured them in). Attracted by warm waters then slipped into pool and died of starvation or drowning. Some of the bones look like the mammoth is trying to get back up
• One baby mammoth found in 2007 shows that it may have eaten the poop of adult mammoths. Didn’t have fully developed teeth for chewing grass, and fungi was found on dung and spores in nearby vegetation, which the baby would have eaten
• Mammoth calves had lots of fat, which helped keep them warm
• Gestation period of 22 months
• Like elephants, mammoths were maybe matriarchal and social
• Both male and female mammoths had tusks
• Some mammoths found with genitals so know it’s male or female
• Growth lines in tusks tell age
• Had milk tusks before massive tusks that were permanent. Milk tusks from age 6 months lasted about a year
• Tusks spiral or corkscrew and the tusks twist in opposite directions
• May have used tusks for intraspecies combat
• Maybe used tusks to plough snow, break up ice to eat in winter or strip bark and dig up plants
• Some mammoths had severe tooth decay. Some cancerous growths
• Unclear where and how the word “mammoth” came about
• Possible from Arabic word mehemot derived from Hebrew word behemoth, the name for the primeval creature mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible
• Was a large strong animal with curved horns or tusks and believed to eat lots of grass and water and have a mild and peaceful nature
• Alternative view is name comes from various northern languages
• Possible maamutt in Estonian. Maa means earth and mutt means mole which links name to the widespread belief that the animal burrowed beneath the ground
• Word introduced to Europe in 1618-20 by Richard Johnson who reported on the maimanto tusks found in Siberia
• Word mammoth widespread in Europe by 18th century
• John Bell said in 1722 that the tusks were well known in Siberia, and they were often found in washed-out river banks
• Siberians and Inuit thought mammoths were alive because bodies emerging from permafrost since the Ice Age (included flesh and blood exposed by rivers and thawing. Thought it was a giant mole that occasionally came to the surface like a whale but died immediately when exposed to the sun or moonlight. Explained why nobody saw one alive
• Many specimens found with full stomachs. Some drowned or buried alive in a mud flow or ground above them caved in
• Lots of legends of mammoths
• Chinese text from 1712: “The northern plain near the sea in Russia is the coldest place. There is a kind of beast, which like a mouse as big as an elephant, crawls in tunnels, and dies as it meets the sun or moon light. The native people often find it near the river bank”
• Tusks sometimes seen as talons of a vast bird, antlers of a giant deer, or horns of a huge male goat
• First attempts to draw a mammoth based on bones led to strange unicorn like beasts or an ox with hoofs and a great single horn on forehead
• Humans produced art latter part of last Ice Age about 35,000 to 11,500 years ago
• Horses and bison dominate, then comes mammoths
• Over 500 representations known in paintings in caves and engravings on bone, stone, antler and ivory
• Also stone plaques and carvings, tools from bones, and jewelry
• Huts made of Mammoth bones found
• Mammoth bones often thought to come from giants, before they were known to be from mammoths
• Hans Sloane in 1728 studied teeth and tusks from Siberia and suggested they belonged to elephants, and not giants
• Johann Friedrich Blumenbach named Elephas primigenius in 1799, which made the woolly mammoth the same genus as the Asian elephant. Name means “first-born elephant”
• In 1828, Joshua Brookes used the name Mammuthus borealis for fossils in his collection that he put up for sale
• Georges Cuvier identified mammoths as an extinct species of elephant in 1796
• Thomas Jefferson helped make the word mammoth mean something large. There was a description of a large wheel of cheese, the “Cheshire Mammoth Cheese” given to him in 1802 (weighed 1,230 lb). He wasn’t the only one using the term “mammoth” to mean something big though. A baker in Philadelphia had “Mammoth Bread.” A man in Washington said he was a “Mammoth Eater”, and someone in New York grew a 20-lb “mammoth” radish
• Jefferson did send Lewis and Clarke on their mission, partly to find a living mammoth
• Debate over whether mammoths went extinct due to climate change or humans overhunting them
• Earth got warmer about 12,000 years ago, glaciers retreated and sea levels rose. There were more forests than open woodlands and grasslands. But climate change had happened before in the Ice Age without leading to similar extinctions of megafauna (large animals) so probably wasn’t the only factor
• Lots of large mammals extinct around same time as mammoths (smaller populations and slower rate of reproduction)
• Humans hunted mammoths but difficult to prove if they caused extinction or not. No direct evidence it was more than an occasional activity
• Another hypothesis is mammoths got an infectious disease
• Seems unlikely (really unlikely that humans introduced deadly diseases)
• A 2021 study of DNA from the environment found that mammoths went extinct probably because of climate change and vegetation changes
• Likely combination of factors
• Woolly mammoth is Mammuthus primigenius, and was one of the last mammoth species
• At first thought to be an elephant
• Both Blumenbach and Georges Cuvier found the bones of Elephas primigenius were from an extinct species. Led to the new name Mammuthus primigenius
• Researchers studied ancient DNA and found the woolly mammoth to be closely related to Asian elephants (Elephas maximus)
• Other DNA studies found that woolly mammoths reproduced with other mammoth species sometimes
• Lived across northern Eurasia and North America
• Co-existed with early humans
• Probably social (cave paintings show them in groups and fossils have been found in groups)
• Woolly mammoth habitat known as “mammoth steppe” or “tundra steppe”, and had lots of grass
• Woolly mammoth lived in rich, grassy vegetation largely devoid of trees
• Had clear skies, long hours of sunlight, moderate precipitation
• Frozen woolly mammoths found in Siberia and North America. Also skeletons, teeth, gut contents, poop, and they’ve been depicted in prehistoric cave paintings
• Woolly mammoths were about the same size as modern African elephants, with males weighing about 4 to 9 tons and being 8.8 to 11.5 ft (about 2.6 to 3.5 m) tall at the shoulder, and females weighing about 3 to 4.4 tons and being 7.5 to 8.5 ft (2.3 to 2.6 m) tall at the shoulder
• A newborn calf weighed about 200 lb (90 kg)
• Grew well into adult life
• Male woolly mammoths kept growing until age 40 and females until age 25
• May have lived up to age 60, based on comparisons with modern elephants
• Suited to live in cold, dry, open environments
• Had small ears and short tails to help minimize losing body heat
• Ears similar in shape to human ears. About 15 in (38 cm) long
• Only 21 vertebrae in tail compared to 28 to 33 in modern elephants
• Had a thick fat layer 3 to 4 in (8 to 10 cm) deep beneath the skin. Helped to stay warm
• Had long, curved tusks and four molars (replaced molars six times during its life)
• Large head with dome
• Short neck with fat storage
• High hump on shoulder and had sloping back
• Walked on toes and had large, fleshy pads on its feet
• Body covered in fur ranging in length from few inches to over 3 ft (90 cm)
• Had glands in the skin that secreted oils in to the hair, which would help with insulation and repelling water, and give its coat a glossy sheen
• Had coarse, wiry outer hairs (3 to 6x thicker than human hair) and shorter thinner hairs forming an underwool (densely packed)
• Had long hairs on the tail
• Furry coat and varied in color from blond to brown or almost black
• Preserved hair is orange but probably result of loss of natural pigment during long burial
• Probably shed its fur in the spring
• Tusks were more curved than modern elephants
• Lots of individual variation with the tusks
• Grew tusks throughout life, but slowed down as it became an adult
• Female tusks were smaller and thinner than male tusks
• Largest known tusk is 14 ft (4.2 m) long and weighs 201 lb (91 kg)
• More typical is 100 lb (45 kg)
• About 8 to 9 ft (2.4 to 2.7 m) long
• Calves grew small tusks at six months old, and then replaced them with permanent tusks a year later
• Used tusks and trunks to move things around, fight, and forage for food, like modern elephants
• Also cleared snow to get to grass
• Tip of trunk had two long fingerlike projections
• Wrapped trunk around large tufts of grass or broke off leafy branches
• Mostly ate grasses and grass-like vegetation
• One calf found with milk and fecal matter in its intestines. May have eaten poop to get the microbes it needed to digest vegetation
• Had four molars, which it replaced five times throughout its life (had six sets of molars)
• Each set was larger and had more ridges
• First set was about the same size as our molars, and the sixth set could be about 1 ft (0.3 m) long and weigh 4 lb (1.8 kg)
• Got sixth set of molars around age 30
• May have foraged up to 20 hours a day (a 6 ton adult would need to eat nearly 400 lb, or 180 kg, of food)
• Probably timed breeding so babies born in plant growth season
• Some pathologies found, including osteomyelitis (bone infection) and arthritis
• Some had gum disease, and some had teeth with cancerous growths
• Scientists figured out that one woolly mammoth, known as Kik, walked about 43,500 mi (70,000 km), almost enough to walk around the world twice
• Male that died almost 17,100 years ago in Alaska, and was 28 years old
• Analyzed DNA and studied his tusks
• Isotopes in the tusks gave an idea about where the mammoth lived (roamed around Alaska)
• Figured out he roamed the lower Yukon River basin when he was young, and probably part of a herd
• Around age 16, there was a shift, possibly got kicked out of the herd (may have been matriarchal, and male elephants also get kicked out around that age)
• Last 18 months of his life lived in a small area (possibly was sick or hurt)
• Seems to have starved to death
• More than 500 known depictions of woolly mammoths, in cave paintings, engravings on the walls, and sculptures
• More than 70 dwellings known made of woolly mammoth bones
• Used large bones as foundations, tusks for entrances
• Bones also made into tools, furniture, and musical instruments
• Ivory used for art, weapons
• Evidence of humans butchering woolly mammoths, based on cut marks, breaks, and stone tools found nearby
• Could be from scavenging or hunting
• Stone spear tips found embedded in some bones
• Woolly mammoth populations died out over time (didn’t go extinct all at once)
• Most died out between 14,000 and 10,000 years ago
• Last known population died out about 4,000 years ago
• Humans may have been one factor in mammoth extinction, but, again, a 2021 study found the climate change and changes in vegetation were the main causes

Fun Fact:

There are several organizations working to “de-extinct” the woolly mammoth

Thank you Patrons!

Your support means so much to us and keeps us going! If you’d like to join our community and hear a bonus episode like this every month featuring a different prehistoric animal, please join our Di-Know-It-All community at patreon.com/iknowdino

Episode 468: What to feed a dinosaur. Ali Nabavizadeh, expert in dinosaur feeding biology, joins us to discuss which modern foods different dinosaurs could eat. Plus a new Triceratops frill that was chewed on by a T. rex

News:

• An undergraduate student found one of the largest theropod fossils in the eastern U.S. source
• There’s a potential new certificate of paleontology for undergrads at Utah State University source
• New evidence of Tyrannosaurus biting Triceratops right on the frill source
• Hadrosaurs may have had muscles for chewing (not just biting and swallowing things whole) source
• Words matter, and scientific names can have an impact on how something is perceived source
• Researchers analyzed paleontology documentaries source
• Why Dinosaurs? documentary had its Hollywood premiere source

Interview:

Ali Nabavizadeh, a paleontologist, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, and author of the recently published book “An Illustrated Guide to Dinosaur Feeding Biology”. Follow him on twitter or Instagram @Vert_Anatomist

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The dinosaur of the day: Liaoceratops

• Ceratopsian that lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Liaoning Province, China (Yixian Formation)
• Small, walked on two legs
• May have looked somewhat similar to Psittacosaurus, but with a short frill on its head
• Described as hare-sized
• Estimated to be about 1.6 ft (50 cm) long and weighed 4.4 lb (2 kg)
• Estimated to be about 1 ft tall (0.3 m)
• Holotype skull was about 6 in (154 mm) long
• Skull similar in size to Psittacosaurus
• Only skulls found so far
• No horns
• Had small neck frill
• Had a small horn that faced sideways under each of its eyes, which was small and light, so may have been for display
• Had pitted surface texture on the edges of the frill that show there were jaw muscles that went behind the cheek and attached to the frill, which was thick
• Ate plants, such as possibly ginkgo, horsetails, or conifers, which have been found nearby
• Sliced and sheared its food, instead of grinding
• Probably hid or ran away when it needed to defend itself
• Early relative of ceratopsids
• Part of the branch (Neoceratopsia) that led to ceratopsians like Triceratops (another different branch includes Psittacosaurus)
• Helps show the early evolution of ceratopsians and that the split happened at least by the Early Cretaceous, about 130 million years ago
• Helps show that the large ceratopsians like Triceratops evolved from small ancestors, and that ceratopsians got some of their distinct features early and more quickly then scientists previously thought
• Named in 2002 by Xu Xing and others
• Type species is Liaoceratops yanzigouensis
• Genus name means “Liaoning horned face”
• Species name refers to the town Yanzigou
• Holotype includes a nearly complete subadult skull
• Other skulls found, including a juvenile skull and an even younger partial skull and jaw from a smaller individual (no skull roof, or braincase, or left cheek region, which could be due to a, probably small, predator eating its brain)
• Thought to be a small predator because when small owls like screech owls go after prey, they “dismember the carcass small bite by small bite” compared to great horned owls that swallow mice whole, according to You Hailu and others
• One of the juvenile skulls is about half as long as the holotype
• A 2023 study of the inside of the skull found that Liaoceratops had a relatively large olfactory bulb, so probably had a good sense of smell, and had other details that suggest it had a stable gaze and kept its head nearly horizontal
• Also found that it had relatively short cochlear ducts, so probably could hear relatively high frequencies
• And found evidence suggesting that adult Liaoceratops was agile on two legs and moved similarly to an adult Psittacosaurus
• A study of the teeth of Liaoceratops in 2018 found that it replaced teeth with progressively larger teeth as it grew to keep up with its growing jaws
• Also found evidence of the beginnings of dental batteries, or at least traits that led to the evolution of dental batteries
• Lived in a wet, humid climate with dry seasons, and an average yearly temperature of 50 degrees F (10 degrees C)
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place include insects, and many dinosaurs such as Psittacosaurus, troodontids Mei (the sleeping one), Sinovenator, and Daliansaurus, dromaeosaur Graciliraptor, the oviraptorosaur Incisivosaurus, the ornithomimosaur Shenzhousaurus, mammals, amphibians, fish
• Also found flowering plants

Fun Fact:

Triceratops had muscles running partially up the front of its frill, similar to our temporal muscles.

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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

Episode 467: Early Dinosaur Entrepreneurs and Triceratops Horn Lengths. Mary Anning, Franz Nopcsa, and Roy Chapman Andrews were some of the first dinosaur entrepreneurs. Plus large dinosaur eyes, small microfossils, dinosaur poaching, and new Triceratops horn length estimates.

This episode’s Dinosaur Connection Challenge, about paleo entrepreneurs, brought to you by Podia (podia.com/dinos)

News:

• Paleontologists discussed the state of Dinosauria source
• Dinosaur eye size can help scientists figure out how well an animal could see source
• Microfossils are important and are now getting studied more source
• The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology participates in discussions and issues that affect vertebrate paleontology and the public source
• Four people were arrested for allegedly stealing and selling $1 million worth of dinosaur bones source
• Fossils found on federal lands are important to the science of paleontology source

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The dinosaur of the day: Euhelopus

• Sauropod that lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Shandong Province, China (Meng-Yin Formation)
• Large, walked on all fours, and had longer forelimbs than hindlimbs
• Had a long neck, and looked similar to Mamenchisaurus, but they’re not that closely related
• More closely related to titanosaurs
• Skull looks similar to Camarasaurus, and also has some similarities to Mamenchisaurus
• Neck was about 13 ft (4 m) long and had 17 neck vertebrae
• Had air sacs in the neck, similar to titanosauriforms and some mamenchisaurids
• Had a box-like skull shape, with large nostrils
• Had pencil-like teeth
• Probably ate hardy vegetation
• Different size estimates: thought to be up to 49 ft (15 m) long and weigh 17 to 22 tons; later thought to be about 36 ft (11 m) long and weigh close to 4 tons; another estimate was about 6.5 tons, and a later estimate was it weighed almost 4 tons
• First dinosaur to be named and described from China
• Found a partial skeleton that included a relatively complete skull and lower jaws, vertebrae, the left thighbone, part of the shoulder, and another skeleton that included vertebrae, a nearly complete pelvis, right leg
• Unique features include details in the neck vertebrae, having divided or forked neural spines on the back of the neck and front of the back, and having air sacs in the ilium (upper half of the pelvis)
• Fossils first found in 1913 by a Catholic priest, Father Mertens. He showed some of the bones to Gustav Behaghel, a German mining engineer, in 1916, who sent three vertebrae to Ding Wenjiang (V.K. Ting), the head of the Geological Survey of China
• Fossil site rediscovered in 1922
• Then in 1923 two skeletons excavated, and H. C. T’an studied the holotype
• Originally named in 1929 as Helopus, by Carl Wiman which means “Marsh Foot”
• Genus name refers to the marshy area where the fossils were found, as well as to truga, Swedish swamp shoes that Wiman said looked like the wide feet of the dinosaur
• Turns out, the name was already used for a bird, named in 1832
• Renamed Euhelopus in 1956 by Alfred Romer
• Genus name means “true marsh foot”
• There is a grass/plant with the same name, but since it’s a plant, Euhelopus can also be the name of a dinosaur/animal
• Type species is Euhelophus zdanskyi
• Species name is in honor of Zdansky
• Zdansky didn’t finish excavating the holotype so in 1934 C. C. Young and M. N. Bien found more bones (parts of the shoulder and right humerus)
• Both skeletons are at the Paleontological Museum of Uppsala University in Sweden (have been on display since the 1930s)
• One of the few sauropods known from an almost complete skull and jaw
• Some of the teeth found were originally thought to belong to a mammal, but were later redescribed as belonging to Euhelopus
• Lots of debate over what type of sauropod Euhelopus is
• Had a long neck and tail, a sloping back, and a proportionately small head
• In 2010, Andreas Christian studied the head and neck of Euhelopus
• Head and neck together weighed about 460 lb (210 kg), and base of the neck to the snout was about 15 ft (4.6 m)
• Calculated the stresses the neck joints felt, and found Euhelopus probably kept its head up like a giraffe’s
• Would have helped eat medium and high up leaves
• Kept neck at an angle of between 40 and 50 degrees
• Did not have a very flexible neck
• Would have taken less energy to keep its neck up maintain its high blood pressure for eating leaves up high than walking to find more food
• Had long neck ribs that helped it shift muscle mass further back towards the trunk
• “During a food shortage, raising the neck was probably even essential for surviving; it is better to get little than nothing at all”
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place included stegosaurids (indeterminate fossils found), fish, and reptiles

Fun Fact:

Triceratops horns were probably covered in keratin that made them significantly longer, but possibly less sharp than the horn cores preserved with the skulls

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

Episode 466: Dinosaur movies: classics, consulting, and a new premiere. Steve Brusatte presented on consulting for Jurassic World: Dominion, Film critic and historian Charles Solomon talked about influential dinosaur animations, Why Dinosaurs? is premiering this weekend, plus news from SVP 2023

News:

• Steve Brusatte shared his experience being the paleontology consultant for Jurassic World: Dominion source
• Internationally respected critic and historian of animation Charles Solomon talked about animation and paleontology in film including “From the Big Bang to Tuesday Morning” source
• A panel of scientists discussed colonialism in vertebrae paleontology source
• The characteristic dinosaur death pose is only regularly seen in non-avian theropods source
• A new Triceratops specimen seems to have “rhizoetching” trace fossils from plant roots and/or fungus source
• A femur from an apatosaurine (possibly Apatosaurus) seems to have a new pathology called osteochondritis dissecans source
• Why Dinosaurs? is premiering in Hollywood source

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The dinosaur of the day: Camposaurus

• Coelophysid dinosaur that lived in the Late Triassic in what is now Arizona, U.S. (Placerias Quarry, Bluewater Creek Formation)
• Not to be confused with Camptosaurus, a much (probably) larger dinosaur that had a beak and ate plants
• Small and carnivorous
• Not enough fossils found to estimate its size
• Fossils found include lower leg bones and other fragments
• Looked similar to Coelophysis
• Based on Coelophysis, would have walked on two legs, had shorter arms, a long tail, a long neck, and elongated head, and would have been slender
• May have gone after small lizards or small, young, dinosaurs
• Type species is Camposaurus arizonensis
• Named in 1998 by Adrian Hunt and others
• Genus name means “Camp’s lizard”
• Named after Charles Lewis Camp, who excavated the fossils
• Species name refers to Arizona, where it was found
• Holotype found in 1934
• Many fossils were included as paratypes when it was named (including more parts of the legs and ankles, part of a sacrum and vertebrae), but not everyone agrees with these fossils being Camposaurus because they were from a large bonebed and although they were found near the holotype, hard to know they’re the same dinosaur
• Named because it had tarsals fused to the tibia and fibula and details in the ankle bone (astragalus)
• For a while thought to be a junior synonym of Coelophysis
• Covered Coelophysis in episode 204
• Alex Downs in 2000 found it to be a junior synonym of Coelophysis because it had lots of similarities to the Coelophysis specimens found on Ghost Ranch in New Mexico
• Wrote that it “appears to fall easily within the range of variation”
• In 2007 Sterling Nesbitt and others also found Camposaurus to be a synonym of Coelophysis, based on its ankle bone being straight and looking the same as that of Coelophysis bauri
• Some paleontologists considered it a nomen dubium because not enough fossils found
• Martin Ezcurra and Steve Brusatte re-examined the holotype of Camposaurus and in 2011 found it had two distinct features, which meant it was valid
• Features in the shinbone (tibia) and ankle bone (astragalus)
• Has a distinct ridge on the tibia, where it forms a joint with the fibula, and does not have a knob on the ankle
• Also found Camposaurus to be closely related to Megapnosaurus, because they have similarities in the leg and ankle
• Covered Megapnosaurus in episode 456
• In 2017, Ezcurra found Camposaurus to be in a clade with Megapnosaurus, Segisaurus, and (later) Lucianovenator
• Lived in the early to middle Norian (Norian is from ~227 to 208.5 mya)
• Thought to be the oldest known neotheropod, or at least one of the oldest
• Neotheropods include coelophysoids and more advanced theropods, and are the only theropods that survived the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. Group includes dinosaurs such as Cryolophosaurus (from Antarctica), Dilophosaurus, Sinosaurus, and more
• Being the oldest or one of the oldest neotheropods means there are long ghost lineages
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place include the phytosaur Rutiodon (phytosaurs were large, mostly semiaquatic reptiles, Rutiodon had a long snout full of sharp teeth), aetosaurs such as Desmatosuchus and Stagonolepis (aetosaurs were heavily armored reptiles, and Desmatosuchus had shoulder spikes) and the metoposaurid Anaschisma (large amphibian that had large jaws and ambushed prey)

Fun Fact:

Dinosaurs sometimes steal mammal hair & fur to improve their nests.

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