Episode 425: Microraptor ate mammals. Plus a new titanosaur, a new Dryptosaurus find, Sabrina connects dinosaurs to princess seams, and much more

News:

• There’s a new titanosaur: Caieira allocaudata source
• A new Dryptosaurus find may include medullary bone—showing another possibly female tyrannosauroid source
• A mammal’s foot was found inside a Microraptor’s ribcage showing that the mammal was eaten by the dinosaur source
• Dippy has a three-year residency at Coventry’s Herbert Art Gallery and Museum source
• A new dinosaur film, 65, comes out in March source

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The dinosaur of the day: Isanosaurus

• Sauropodomorph that lived in the Late Triassic or Late Jurassic in what is now Thailand (Nam Phong Formation)
• Estimated to be about 21 ft (6.5 m) long based on the thigh bone
• But, parts of the holotype skeleton were not fused, so the holotype may not have been fully grown
• Had high neural spines
• Type and only species is Isanosaurus attavipachi
• Named in 2000 by Éric Buffetaut and others
• Genus name means “north-eastern Thailand lizard” (Isan lizard)
• Isan is the local name for northeastern Thailand
• Species name is in honor of P. Attavipach, former Director General of the Thai Department of Mineral Resources and a supporter of paleontological research
• Fossils found in 1998
• Found by a hunter looking for nocturnal flying squirrels who spotted the fossils in the moonlight
• Fossils were in dark red sandstone, and most of the bones had eroded by the time they were found
• Holotype includes a neck vertebra, back vertebra, parts of the tail, fragmentary ribs, part of the shoulder and thigh
• At the time, was the earliest known sauropod dinosaur
• Originally thought to have lived about 210 million years ago
• But in 2009, Racey and Goodall dated Isanosaurus from the Early Jurassic
• One of the earliest sauropodomorphs to walk on all fours (obligate quadrupedal)
• Had a robust femur, “with a sauropod-like straight, craniocaudally flattened shaft” (had a robust, straight thigh bone)
• Means it had column-like legs, and walked on all fours
• In bipedal sauropodomorphs, the leg bone is curved
• Had sauropod features but also primitive features that “seem to illustrate an early stage in the evolution of characters more fully developed in later, more advanced sauropods”
• Looked like a typical sauropod, with a bulky body, long neck, long tail, walked on four legs (but lived pretty early)

Fun Fact:

There are only five US states that don’t have state fossils. Iowa, New Hampshire, Hawaii, & Rhode Island. No one has claimed Tyrannosaurus rex yet.

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