The Big Dinosaur Podcast

Episode 201 is all about Dracorex, The “dragon king of Hogwarts”.

We also interview Jaye Jurassick, frequent guest on the Jurassic Park Podcast and @jaye_jurassick on Instagram where you can see his dinosaur art.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• A new sauropodomorph, Ledumahadi mafube, was the largest dinosaur of its time despite still having a “crouched” posture source
• A ceratopsian at the Smithsonian has been called Triceratops, Diceratops, and Nedoceratops source
• In Villány, Hungary (a wine region), bone fragments of a small igaunodont have been found source
• New fossils have been found in Saskatchewan, Canada this summer, including an Edmontosaurus skull, Triceratops bones, Gorgosaurus teeth, and ankylosaur fossils source
• In Eastern Cape, in South Africa, scientists recently found a giant dinosaur bonebed. It’s about 200 million years old, and the animals were buried together by lots of mud source
• Good news for Zuul fans, the ankylosaur goes on display at the Royal Ontario Museum on December 15 source
• Researchers are recreating part of the Brazil National Museum’s collection with 3D printers source
• Students aged 11-15 made a large part of the new Idaho Dinosaur Exhibit at the Idaho Museum of Natural History, as part of the Dino Camps they attended this summer source
• A STEM lab at Schuyler-Colfax Middle School allows the school to have a lesson plan where students dissect dinosaurs in “ZSPACE” virtual reality source
• Dinosaur Ecosystems, Hong Kong University’s free online course, is back! It started September 14, and there are new field trips to Canada, Spain, France, and the desert of Xinjiang, China source
• Dino 101 also recently got an update source
• There’s a new series for CBBC, called Deadly Dinosaurs demonstrating the power of dinosaurs source
• Mashable published a video of the puppeteers who worked on the dinosaurs in Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom source
• Speculation about Jurassic World 3 includes the idea that there may be dinosaurs in space source

The dinosaur of the day: Dracorex

• It’s a Controversial dinosaur
• In 2009, Goodwin and Horner said that Dracorex was a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus, and Stygimoloch was in between an adult and juvenile (Pachycephalosaurus was the adult), based on the fact that they had relatively similar skulls
• Talked about Pachycephalosaurus in episode 93, Stygimoloch in episode 176
• Goodwin and Horner suggested that the dinosaur grew and changed shape as it aged
• Dracorex was half grown, Stgyimoloch was 3/4 grown
• Described in 2006 by Bob Bakker and Robert Sullivan and others
• According to Bob Bakker, Stygimoloch is different because of its huge spike cluster (with three enlarged spikes), Dracorex has a shorter, four spike arrangement on its head, and that the two had different sized and shaped skulls
• Pachycephalosaurus has a broad, rounded dome, compared to Stygimoloch that had a narrow dome and larger horns
• Did not have a dome on its head but instead had knobs around two big holes
• Also had horns that were shorter than Stygimoloch
• Skull also had bumps and had a long snout and was flat
• Also lots of osteoderms (nodes, larger hornlets, and spikes)
• Skull has two large holes (fenestrae)
• In an interview, Bob Bakker said he was thrilled with the idea when he first heard it. No other modern species has done that kind of transformation. Horner’s proposal is that the horns grow out of the back of the head as a juvenile, and then reverses and reduces as it reaches maturity, then the horns disappeared and the flat forehead grew upword and became a solid dome of bone, and large openings in the skull would close quickly. However, Bakker said he’d studied horn and dome growth in modern animals (muskoxen ,giraffes, African Water Buffalo, and none of them have any kind of reverse horn development as described for Pachycephalosaurus. Also Triceratops skulls change over time, but the horns start small and grow larger, not the other way around. Bakker also said he had a genuine juvenile Pachycelphalosaurus skull, about 2/3 the length of an adult, and the skull had “a shape that’s 95% like the adult stage.”
• “The horns are small. The temporal holes are gone. And the dome is huge and dome development has distorted the neighboring bones above the eye. This juvie Pachycephalosaurus is just as small as the Dracorex skull at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. But the juvenile Pachycephalosaurus had already acquired the definitive Pachycepahlosaurus head structure – it doesn’t look anything like a Dracorex. We have new Stygimoloch skulls too, the same size as the Dracorex. These stygi skulls are not intermediate is shape. They have a small dome and large horns – the diagnostic Stygimoloch cranial configuration. So……..though electrifying in its novelty, Jack’s theory simply doesn’t work. Pachycephalosaur dinosaurs did grow like Triceratops – or like muskoxen. Bumps and horns simply got bigger and thicker all through life. There was no sudden, dramatic growth reversal. By the time an individual pachy had achieved half-grown size, its dome and horns were taking on the shape that was very close to what the adult would have.”
• Nick Longrich and others said in 2010 that all flat-skulled pachycephalosaurs were juveniles
• First flat-headed pachycephalosaur found in North America
• Bakker said, “Dracorex is a scientifically significant milestone in the world of paleontology; it proves that family trees were still branching off and evolving, even near the end of the age of dinosaurs. It demonstrated a world of color and movement in nature more recently than we ever thought possible.”
• Looks very dragon like
• About 9.8 ft (3 m) long
• Herbivorous
• Part of the family Pachycephalosauridae
• Most similar to Stygimoloch and somewhat similar to Pachycephalosaurus
• Skull is similar to the modern animal Giant Forest Hog (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni), both have similar length skulls, and long snouts/muzzles. Giant Forest Hogs shove with their skulls and ram each other. They have powerful, flexible neck muscles and can lift opponents off the ground. As the fight escalates, they run into each other and ram their flat skulls together, sometimes fracturing bones
• Dracorex may have pressed heads together and pushed, and the knobs and ridges on the skull may have helped hold the skulls together to prevent slipping
• Also the spikes at the back of the head could inflict fatal wounds on the flank. Oryx (modern antelope) use their backward facing horns to kill predators, so Dracorex and Stygimoloch may have done something similar
• Dracorex was found by Steve and Pat Saulsbury (brothers) and Brian Buckmeier, from Sioux City, Iowa, while on a fossil collecting trip. They donated the skull to the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis in late 2004 so it could be studied
• Found one nearly complete skull, and four neck vertebrae
• Type species is Dracorex hogwartsia
• Name means “dragon king of Hogwarts”
• Bob Bakker and others named it, and let J. K. Rowling know (in a video with Bob Bakker, he said she was a fan of the name)
• “the species named in honor of her contribution tochildren’s education and the joy of exploration” (Bakker said the name Hogwarts came to him as soon as he saw the skull)
• Rowling said, “The naming of Dracorex hogwartsia is easily the most unexpected honor to have come my way since the publication of the Harry Potter books! I am absolutely thrilled to think that Hogwarts has made a small claw mark upon the fascinating world of dinosaurs. I happen to know more on the subject of paleontology than many might credit, because my eldest daughter was Utahraptor-obsessed, and I am now living with a passionate Tyrannosaurus rex-lover, aged three. My credibility has soared within my science-loving family, and I am very much looking forward to reading Dr. Bakker and his colleague’s paper describing “my” dinosaur, which I can’t help visualizing as a slightly less pyromaniac Hungarian Horntail.”
• Bakker and others since have found 4 Dracorex specimens
• Lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now North America

Fun Fact:

We may be able to determine new details about dinosaur eyesight and their behavior with well-preserved sclerotic rings (actual bones in the cornea that support the eye) and a preserved orbit (the eyesocket).

Sponsors:

This episode is brought to you in part by TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and animatronics. You can see some amazing examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs