The Big Dinosaur Podcast

Episode 430: Whiskers or eyelashes on dinosaurs? Plus a dinosaur connection challenge with Pokemon

News:

• 256 new titanosaur eggs were discovered in India source
• A new type of egg in Japan probably came from a small troodontid theropod source

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The dinosaur of the day: Lophostropheus

• Coelophysoid theropod that lived between the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic, around 205 to 196 million years ago, in what is now Normandy, France (Moon-Airel Formation)
• Looked kind of like Dilophosaurus, but smaller
• Walked on two legs, had long arms, a long tail, and a couple crests on the top of its head
• Small to medium in size
• Estimated it could grow up to 9.8 ft (3 m) long and weigh up to 220 lb (100 kg)
• Though some scientists, such as Molina-Pérez and Larramendi, have estimated up to 17 ft (5.2 m) long and weighing 300 lb (136 kg)
• May have survived the Triassic-Jurassic extinction
• Type species is Lophostropheus airelensis
• Genus name means “crest vertebrae”
• Genus name refers to the low crests on the top and bottom (dorsal and ventral) neck vertebrae
• Species name refers to the Airel Quarry where the fossils were found
• Originally thought to be Halticosaurus, and then Liliensternus, before being named Lophostropheus
• Halticosaurus is a dubious theropod that lived in the Triassic, and was named in 1908
• Liliensternus was a basal neotheropod that lived in the Triassic in what is now Germany, and named in 1984
• Fossils first described in 1966 by Claude Larsonneur and Albert-Félix de Lapparent, as Halticosaurus
• Described a partial skeleton that was found in 1959, which included a tooth, a number of vertebrae, including five neck vertebrae, and parts of the pelvis
• From the 1966 paper by Claude Larsonneur and Albert F. De Lapparent: “One tooth, thirty-five vertebrae, several bone fragments and coprolites were discovered in the blackish and sandy-clayey beds of the Airel quarry”
• Tooth found was 2 cm, slightly recurved and flattened, with serrated edges
• Authors said “this trenchant tooth “at the same time is a knife, sabre and saw” according to Buckland’s remark”
• Recognized they could not classify the dinosaur based on just one tooth, but said the tooth pointed them to the dinosaur being a theropod and the vertebrae made it seem like it was Halticosaurus
• Seven of the vertebrae are from the neck, “remarkable for their elongation”, which the authors said “is not so frequent in dinosaurs”
• Also found three coprolites with fish teeth and scales, which may have belonged to the Halticosaurus/Lophostropheus
• They also said that in the quarry, “mollusc shells form true marbles in places”
• In 1993 Gilles Cuny and Peter Galton reclassified the specimen as Liliensternus airelensis
• But later, more differences were found, such as having an extra pair of cavities in the neck vertebrae, and splitting the dinosaur to a new genus as Lophostropheus made sense
• In 2000, Oliver Rauhut and Axel Hungerbühler published a review of European Triassic theropods, and suggested Liliensternus airelensis “might represent a distinct genus, but more material is needed to confirm this”
• Found major differences in the neck vertebrae, such as the extra cavities, but said whether or not that’s enough to merit a new genus depended on finding more fossils for comparison
• In 2004 Matthew Carrano and S. D. Sampson published a review of coelophysoids from the Lower Jurassic of Europe, and found Liliensternus/Lophostropheus to be a coelophysoid
• Named Lophostropheus in 2007 by Martin Ezcurra and Gilles Cuny
• Ezcurra and Cuny in 2007 found that Liliensternus airelensis had enough unique features to be renamed Lophostropheus, including “constant length of caudal vertebrae along the tail”, and found that features Lophostropheus had in common with Liliensternus liliensterni were “more widely distributed among coelophysoids and basal dinosaurs than it was thought” (meaning those features weren’t enough to keep them grouped together)
• Also found Lophostropheus to be more closely related to Coelophysidae than Liliensternus liliensterni
• Not too many other animals found in the Airel quarry, but found plants and fish

Fun Fact:

Some dinosaurs may have had whiskers.

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Episode 429: A mini ankylosaur and a giant hadrosaur. Plus Lindsey Kinsella joins to discuss his new book “The Lazarus Taxa” which includes scientists traveling to the Cretaceous and encountering many interesting dinosaurs.

News:

• A new tiny ankylosaur from Patagonia, Patagopelta source
• Baby tyrannosaurs may have been walking friends source

Interview:

Lindsey Kinsella, a paleontology enthusiast, and writer & author of the sci-fi novel The Lazarus Taxa which includes scientists time traveling to the Late Cretaceous. Connect with him on facebook, instagram, twitter, or tiktok.

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The dinosaur of the day: Magnapaulia

• Lambeosaurine hadrosaurid that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Baja California, Mexico (El Gallo Formation)
• Very large hadrosaur, with a crest on top of its head, a bulky body that walked on four legs and had a tall tail
• Originally estimated to be between about 49 to 54 ft (15 to 16.5 m) long and weigh up to 8.8 tons
• In 2012, Prieto-Márquez and others estimated it to be around 41 ft (12.5 m) long
• Type species is Magnapaulia laticaudus
• Described in 1981 by William Morris
• Originally Morris referred the fossils to Hypacrosaurus altispinus, based on the long neural spines of the tail, but then he changed it to cf. Lambeosaurus, based on details of the premaxilla (upper jaw), and then he named it Lambeosaurus laticaudus (based on its large size and the tall neural spines in the tail)
• Later scientists suggested Lambeosaurus laticaudus could be Hypacrosaurus, or not a valid taxon
• Named by Albert Prieto-Márquez, Luis Chiappe, and Shantanu Joshi as Magnapaulia in 2012
• Genus name means “large” and “paulia” is in honor of “Mr. Paul Haaga for his outstanding support to the research and public programs of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and its Dinosaur Institute”
• Species name means “broad tail”
• Fossils found in an excavation by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County between 1968 and 1974
• Holotype includes parts of the jaw, vertebrae, parts of the leg, parts of the pelvis, and parts of the arm
• 24 referred specimens found, all within 3 m of where the holotype was found. Fossils include partial skeletons, and skin impressions
• Morris thought Lambeosaurus laticaudus spent its time in the water, because it was so big and it had such a tall, narrow tail (good for swimming? could give it a push), weak connections in the hips, and a healed broken thigh bone that he thought would have been too difficult of an injury to survive on land (easier to recover in the water, less weight on the leg)
• Prieto-Márquez et. al said that adult hadrosaurids were between 7 to 10 m long, and Magnapaulia was much longer (“one of the largest known hadrosaurid species, not only in North America, but in the world”), which makes it a “giant” hadrosaurid
• Chiappe wrote on his site that “The size was so impressive that it could have been mistaken for an Apatosaurus!”
• Had a proportionately slender femur
• Only fragments of the crest have been found
• Had elongated chevrons and vertebral spines, similar to Hypacrosaurus, which meant it had a tall tail
• Tail of one specimen found (LACM 17712) had skin impressions with large scales up to 4 cm wide, surrounded by 1 cm wide hexagonal and rounded scales
• Closely related to Velafrons, which was also found in what is now Mexico (covered in episode 324)
• Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place include dromaeosaurs, tyrannosaurs, hadrosaurs, and ankylosaurs
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place include lepidosaurs, mammals, and amphibians

Fun Fact:

Ankylosaurs like Patagopelta made it from North to South America across Panama during the “First American Biotic Interchange.”

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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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Episode 427: The first dinosaur respiratory infection with Cary Woodruff. We discuss Dolly, the sauropod with the first probable respiratory infection in a dinosaur; Also, a new tyrannosauroid, a new titanosauriform, and the dinosaur with the longest neck.

News:

• Paleontologist Jorge Calvo passed away on January 10 of this year source
• A new tyrannosauroid from Northeast China is the first predatory dinosaur found in the area source
• A new titanosauriform, Ruixinia zhangi, had an unusual tail source

Interview:

Cary Woodruff, a sauropod specialist and curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science. He recently described Dolly, the first non-avian dinosaur found to have a respiratory infection. Follow him on twitter @DoubleBeam

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The dinosaur of the day: Xinjiangtitan

• Chinese: 新疆巨龙 (pinyin: Xinjiangjùlóng)
• Mamenchisaurid sauropod that lived in the Middle Jurassic in what is now Xinjiang, China (Qiketai Formation)
• Stand out feature is its extremely long neck
• Neck was even longer than Mamenchisaurus (one Mamenchisaurus species neck is estimated to be about 39 ft or 12 m long)
• Xinjiangtitan’s neck is estimated to be up to 49 ft (15 m) long
• Had the longest neck among mamenchisaurids, that are known so far
• Other dinosaurs out there that may have had longer necks, but we don’t have enough fossils to confirm (for example, Supersaurus may have had a neck that was up to about nearly 56 ft or 17 m long)
• Estimated to be about 98 to 105 ft (30 to 32 m) long and weigh 40 metric tons
• Thighbone found is about 5.4 ft (1.65 m) long
• Had relatively short hind limbs
• Also had a long, whip like tail, and stood on four columnar legs
• Type species is Xinjiangtitan shanshanesis
• Found an incomplete skeleton, but includes a very complete vertebral column (the neck), and a nearly complete tail
• Also part of the skull, part of the pelvis, and most of the left hind limb
• Fossils found in 2012 by a joint expedition between Jilin University, Shenyang Normal University, and Xinjiang Geological Survey Institute
• Described in 2013 by Wu Wen-hao and others
• Genus name refers to Xinjiang
• Species name refers to the alternative name for Shanshan, the county where it was found (named after the Shanshan Kingdom)
• Originally described with only two neck vertebrae, in addition to other vertebrae and part of the pelvis and hind limb
• Zhang and others redescribed all the material and included the 18 neck vertebrae in 2018 (parts of the skeleton were left unexposed and unexavacted the first time around)
• More fossils excavated in 2014 and 2015
• Most complete vertebral (spinal) column found in Asia, so far
• Vertebrae were all found articulated, in situ
• Neck had 18 vertebrae, which together is estimated to be about 49 ft (15 m) long, according to Zhang and others in 2018
• Some definitions, thanks to Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week:
• The main part of the vertebra is the centrum
• There’s a ball in the front of the centrum, called the condyle
• There’s a socket at the back of the centrum, called the cotyle
• The condyle and cotyle fit together
• There’s a range for how long the neck was, based on whether you use the minimum or maximum centrum length in your calculations (based on whether or not you include the front, or anterior, condyle, because sometimes they’re completely buried in the cotyles, and sometimes, like in camels, they don’t reach each other) and how much cartilage you assume was in the neck
• Zhang and others used the maximum centrum lengths
• Matt Wedel on Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week estimated the neck to be closer to about 44 ft or 13.4 m long (using the minimum centrum lengths), partly based on condyles being buried in the cotyles in a couple vertebrae
• Type specimen is at the Shanshan Geological Museum

Fun Fact:

The first ever mounted dinosaur display drew huge crowds, but it remained the only mounted skeleton for 15 years.

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 426: The Best Dinosaur Museums in the World. The best places to see dinosaurs in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia

Find the dinosaur museum closest to you or any of the museums we mentioned at iknowdino.com/dinosaur-museums/

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The dinosaur of the day: Haya

• Neornithischian (“hypsilophodontid”) that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now the Gobi Desert in Mongolia (Javkhlant Formation and Nemegt Formation)
• Had a somewhat long body, long tail, short arms, walked on two legs, and had an elongate skull with a beak
• Had multiple unique features, including five “bulbous, unserrated premaxillary teeth”
• The frontals, at the top of the head “form a remarkably flat and extensive skull table”
• Had relatively wide, triangular nasals
• Had an elongate lower jaw (dentary) that “forms over half the length of the mandible”
• Had short neural arches
• Had a gracile humerus (arm), that in one specimen found “bears evidence of scavenging” (two holes probably from burrowing arthropods, as seen in other dinosaurs from the Gobi Desert)
• Described by Peter Makovicky and others in 2011
• Found several specimens that were well-preserved
• Fossils found between 2002 and 2007 by the joint Mongolian Academy of Sciences—AMNH expeditions
• Holotype is a complete, “barely distorted” skull, and has parts of the spine
• Type species is Haya griva
• Genus and species name are “from the Sanskrit for the Hindu deity Hayagriva, an avatar of Vishnu characterized by a horse head, in reference to the elongate and faintly horse-like skull of this dinosaur, and the common depiction of this deity in the Buddhist art of Mongolia”
• Name refers to the long, horse-like skull
• Lots of specimens found, so we know pretty much how the whole skeleton looked
• A few specimens were found with a lot of gastroliths
• One was described as a “sizeable gastrolith mass” and is only the second one found in ornithopods
• The specimen with the gastroliths found near the abdomen had “two tightly clustered masses of pebbles”, probably quartz or flint
• Mark Norell and Daniel Barta published in 2016 about a new Haya specimen found in the Nemegt Formation
• Fossils found around 1992, a fragmentary skeleton that included the left side of the head, parts of the arm, vertebrae, ribs
• Most of the specimen was eroded but after preparing the fossils they found it had a lot of similarities to Haya
• In 2021, Barta and Norell published in-depth the osteology of Haya griva (skeleton)
• Lots of referred specimens (counted 36 in the paper)
• Enough to see a growth series
• Specimens studied had a range of sizes but histology shows they are perinatal to subadults, and there are no skeletally mature specimens
• Based on histology, probably had a high growth rate, and all the specimens sampled seemed to have been actively growing when they died
• Got more teeth as it grew
• Gastroliths found with multiple specimens
• Gastroliths are smooth with rounded edges
• One specimen found had skull and bones “fairly widely separated from one another, possibly dispersed by scavengers or running water”
• In one case, two individuals were found buried close to each other, along with a troodontid tooth
• Lots of the bones have holes, probably from insects eating the bones after the dinosaurs died (see in lots of dinosaurs from the Gobi Desert)
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place include the neoceratopsian Yamaceratops, small maniraptorans, mammals, and lizards

Fun Fact:

Thomas Jefferson was an amateur fossil collector.

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