Episode 303 is all about Austroraptor, a Utahraptor-sized South American raptor with shorter arms and non-serrated teeth.
We also interview Tony and James Pinto, the father and son team currently creating the feature length documentary Why Dinosaurs? which explores why people like us spend so much time on dinosaurs. Watch the extended video version of the interview at https://youtu.be/La7zO4mcbNY
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In this episode, we discuss:
News:
- A new theropod from the UK was found with unusually hollow vertebrae source
- The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is hosting a free online lecture on Thursday, September 17 about their recent updates source
- Researchers at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum are revisiting old dig sites that Charles M. Sternberg went to find more Triceratops source
- A large outdoor animatronic exhibit is coming to McKinney, Texas source
- A man bought his wife a 12ft Tyrannosaurus rex statue when she asked him to spruce up their garden source
- Speculation about Jurassic World Dominion includes BioSyn returning to compete with InGen source
The dinosaur of the day: Austroraptor
- An unenlagiine dromaeosaurid that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Argentina (Allen Formation, in Rio Negro)
- One of the largest known dromaeosaurids
- Almost as big as Utahraptor
- Estimated to be 16 ft (5m) long, though Gregory Paul later estimated it to be 20 ft (6 m) long and weigh 660 lb (300 kg)
- Bipedal carnivore
- Had a low, elongated skull (may have had a weaker bite force)
- Had conical, non-serrated teeth with no denticles, which Novas and others, who named Austroraptor, compared to spinosaurid teeth
- Had short arms for a dromaeosaurid (usually dromaeosaurids have long arms)
- Humerus was less than half the length of the femur (about 46%), compared to 76% in Deinonychus
- Not closely related, but has been compared to T. rex because of its short arms
- As an unenlagiine, may have been a good runner and better at pursuing prey than other dromaeosaurids. Gracile, so could run fast for long periods of time, and had relatively thin, long metatarsals. These things mean they could chase after small, fast animals
- Models for dromaeosaur relative Buitreraptor has suggested that it traveled long distances to chase after prey and used its long forelimbs and sickle-claw to injury or kill prey, and probably swallowed its food whole with its non-serrated teeth, used teeth to hold prey
- Similar model proposed for Austroraptor, though it would not have held its prey because its arms were too short, and its teeth were conical and possible stronger, so it could have used its teeth when hunting
- Type species is Austroraptor cabazai
- Found in 2002 by a team
- Described and named in 2008 by Fernando Emilio Novas and others
- Found a partial skeleton with a lot of the skull
- Holotype includes parts of the skull, lower jaw, vertebrae, ribs, humerus, and parts of the legs
- Genus name means “Southern thief”
- Species name is in honor of Alberto Cabaza, who founded the Museo Municipal de Lamarque where the fossil was partially studied
- Phil Currie and Ariana Paulina-Carabajal referred a second specimen to Austroraptor in 2012 that had been found in 2008 (adult partial skeleton with a skull a little smaller than the holotype, and includes things missing in the holotype like the lower arm, hand, and foot)
- Earliest known Gondwanan dromaeosaurids, and helps show that large dromaeosaurids were some of the large predators alongside abelisaurids
- Lived alongside titanosaurs such as Laplatasaurus and Saltasaurus, birds such as Limenavis, and hadrosaurids such as Bonapartesaurus and Lapampasaurus
- Can see Austroraptor at the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural History museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Fun Fact: Lakes have the potential to kill large numbers of dinosaurs through poisonous algal blooms, limnic eruptions, or changes in salinity.
