Episode 462: Designing a Paleozoo with Charles Nye. Plus a new hypsilophodontid from Dinosaur Isle, a new silesaur from Brazil, and how Charles Knight made realistic paleoart that is still influential over a century after it was drawn

News:

• A new tiny relative of Hypsilophodon, Vectidromeus, from Dinosaur Isle source
• New silesaurs found that add to the debate about where the group stands source

Interview:

Charles Nye, a paleoartist, grad student at Oregon State University, and project lead for The Artemis Paleozoo, an art book depicting the care and preservation of life that time forgot. Follow him @thepaintpaddock on Instagram and twitter and the Paleozoo @ProjectPaleozoo on Instagram and twitter.

Sponsors:

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The dinosaur of the day: Gideonmantellia

• Basal ornithopod that lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Teruel, Spain (Camarillas Formation)
• Looked somewhat similar to Hypsilophodon
• Small, slender, had a long tail, short arms, walked on two legs, a somewhat long skull with a beak
• Holotype skeleton estimated to be about 3.2 ft (1 m) long
• Holotype is a partial articulated skeleton (no skull) of a juvenile
• Unfused bones, so was an immature individual, and some of the lack of fusion means the animal was still growing when it died, so it’s hard to know exactly how old it was (no histology done)
• Holotype includes 21 tail vertebrae, and other vertebrae, parts of the ribs, parts of ossified tendons, part of the pelvis, both legs, and lots of the feet
• “Both femora are almost completely preserved, especially the left one”
• “Altogether, 104 remains from the vertebral series, left hip and the two hindlimbs have been identified, all belonging to a single individual. This makes it the most complete ornithopod skeleton and one of the most complete dinosaur skeletons found in Spain”
• José María Herrero Marzo and his son found the fossils in 1982
• First thought to be cf. Valdosaurus sp., based on the femur (an iguanodont)
• In 1987 José Luis Sanz and others described the left femur and ilium (leg and part of the pelvis), and referred it to Hypsilophodon foxii
• In 1994 and 1995, José Ignacio Ruiz-Omeñaca realized it was a new dinosaur, after further preparing the bones, and he wrote about it in his thesis, and published more details and descriptions over the years
• Details in the pelvis and tail made it unique
• In 2006 he named the dinosaur Gideonmantellia amosanjuanae in his doctoral thesis, but the name wasn’t yet valid (nomen ex dissertatione)
• Officially named in 2012 by Ruiz-Omeñaca and others
• Type and only species is Gideonmantellia amosanjuanae
• Genus name is in honor of Gideon Mantell
• Mantell was the “first author to describe and to figure “hypsilophodontid” remains in 1849, as those of a very young Iguanodon” (which later became the paratype of Hypsilophodon)
• Mantell discovered dinosaurs including Iguanodon, Hylaeosaurus, Pelorosaurus, and Regnosaurus
• Species name is in honor of Olga María Amo Sanjuán, “who was doing her thesis on eggshell fragments of vertebrates from the Lower Cretaceous of Galve when she died prematurely in October 2002”
• Galve is a village in the Teruel province in Spain, and is known for the Latest Jurassic-Early Cretaceous vertebrate fossils (more than 50 localities with fossils from dinosaurs, pterosaurs, sharks, amphibians, fish, turtles, crocodilians, mammals, and squamates)
• Also found in the same locality as Gideonmantellia were parts of the feet of a medium-sized theropod, and fossils from bony fish, turtles, and crocodiles
• Locality where it was found “was destroyed by the local clay-mining industry”
• After it died, the Gideonmantellia skeleton moved a short distance and was buried quickly (no real signs of abrasion or weathering)
• Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place included the spinosaur Camarillasaurus, Iguanodon, and lots of indeterminate dinosaurs including sauropods, dromaeosaurs, and allosaurs
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place included turtles, snakes, crocodyliforms, pterosaurs, fish, and mammals
• Holotype of Gideonmantellia is on display in a local exhibition under municipal management in Galve, Spain

Fun Fact:

Charles Knight pioneered paleoart and shaped a lot of what it is today, paying attention to details in anatomy and basing his paintings on real fossils—including for the now dubious Agathaumas.

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