Episode 371 is all about Probactrosaurus, a hadrosauroid that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Inner Mongolia, China.

We also interview David Levering, Camps Director at the Fort Hays State University’s Sternberg Museum of Natural History and creator of the Sternberg Museum of Natural History Online. Check out our video of the virtual museum at https://youtu.be/MCbdT3xOIBM

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• The first toothless ceratosaur from South America, Berthasaura leopoldinae, was found in Brazil source
• A new Deinonychus-sized raptor, Vectiraptor greeni, was found on the Isle of Wight source
• Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur animated series has a new trailer source
• A new photo from Jurassic World: Dominion shows Owen Grady taming a Parasaurolophus in the snow source

The dinosaur of the day: Probactrosaurus

• Hadrosauroid that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Inner Mongolia, China (Dashuigou Formation)
• Looks like a typical hadrosaur, with a duckbill and bulky body
• Medium-sized and gracile
• Estimated to be 18 ft (5.5 m) long and weigh 1 tonne
• Herbivorous
• Had a narrow snout, and elongated jaw
• Had tooth batteries
• No crest on the skull
• Had long, slender arms and hands and a small thumb spike
• Probably mostly walked on four legs
• Fossils found in 1959 and 1960 during a Russian-Chinese expedition
• Holotype is a partial skeleton with a skull
• Another partial skeleton and fragments were also found
• Described in 1966 by Anatoly Konstantinovich Rozhdestvensky
• Type species is Probactrosaurus gobiensis
• Genus name means “before Bactrosaurus”
• Genus named refers to the hypothesis that Probactrosaurus was a direct ancestor of Bactrosaurus (scientists don’t think that anymore)
• Species name refers to the Gobi desert
• Rozhdestvensky named a second species, Probactrosaurus alashanicus, based on fragments, in 1966 based on the back of a skull
• Species name refers to the Alxa League (at the western part of Inner Mongolia)
• In 2002, David Norman revised Probactrosaurus. He said the holotype of Probactrosaurus alashanicus was lost and that it was a synonym of Probactrosaurus gobiensis
• Lü Junchang named Probactrosaurus mazongshanensis in 1997, based on fossils found in 1992 (a partial skull and skeleton)
• Species name refers to the Mazong Shan region
• Later it was formally described and renamed as Gongpoquansaurus
• Probactrosaurus may be closely related to Siamodon, an iguanodontian found in Thailand, but they have different numbers of tooth positions

Fun Fact: It’s unlikely that dinosaurs had venom, but some of them may have been toxic.

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