The Big Dinosaur Podcast

Episode 182 is all about Monolophosaurus a meat eating Chinese dinosaur with a single head crest.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• Researchers find that large dinosaurs didn’t sit directly on their eggs, allowing contact incubation without crushing their babies
• An excellent new specimen the important early sauropodomorph Buriolestes was discovered and fills in missing bones from the holotype
• Hundreds of cretaceous tracks in Coahuila, Mexico were modeled using photogrammetry
• The theropod skeleton going up for auction in Paris may also come with naming rights
• Google Doodle celebrated Mother’s Day by sharing a dinosaur doodle
• The  Patagotitan mayorum titanosaur replica that’s headed to the Field Museum in Chicago will be named “Maximo”
• The National Museum in Rio de Janeiro is crowdfunding to restore their Maxakalisaurus topai
• The Flint Hills Discovery Center in Manhattan, Kansas, has a new exhibit, called “Be the Dinosaur“
• The traveling dinosaur exhibition “DinoTrek” will become a permanent exhibit at Kuching Civic Centre in Malaysia
• Charles Dickens was a science enthusiast according to the Gaurdian
• Dixie the dinosaur from Dixon, California has moved to a new home
• An “Oscar-worthy” video of a young boy at a dinosaur theme park
• The Jurassic Park ride in Universal Studios Hollywood will be shutdown on September 3rd to update for Jurassic World
• IGN released a new gameplay video of Jurassic World: Evolution
• Universal Pictures released a featurette of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

The dinosaur of the day: Monolophosaurus

• Appears in Jurassic Park III: Park Builder game, as well as Jurassic World: The Game (not originally in the game, but added in August 2015, and you can unlock it in the level 55 battle area), and will also be in the game Jurassic World: Alive
• Tetanuran theropod that lived in the Jurassic in what is now Xinjiang, China (Shishugou Formation)
• Type species (only species) is Monolophosaurus jiangi
• Found a nearly complete skeleton in 1981 on a Canadian-Chinese expedition, and it took 3 years to excavate
• Referred in the media in 1987 as Jiangjunmiaosaurus before it was officially described, and that was an invalid nomen nudum (naked name)
• Dong Shiming mentioned it as Monolophosaurus jiangjunmiaoi in 1992, and by Wayne Grady as Monolophosaurus dongi in 1993, but there was no description so these are nomina nuda
• Described in 1993/1994 by Zhao Xijin and Philip Currie and named Monolophosaurus jiangi
• Genus name means “single-crested lizard”
• Had one crest on top of its skull
• Species name refers to Jiangjunmiao, an abandoned desert inn near where the specimen was found
• Jiangjunmiao means “the temple of the general”, and there’s a local legend that a general was buried there
• Holotype consists of a skull, lower jaws, vertebral column, and pelvis, and is either an adult or subadult
• About 16.4 ft (5 m) long and weighed 1,500 lb (680 kg), though Gregory Paul estimated in 2010 that it was 18 ft (5.5 m) and weighed 1047 lb (475 kg)
• Type specimen restored with plaster so it could be part of a traveling exhibit, and the left side is now in foam, which has made additional examination of the fossil difficult
• Stephen Brusatte published two studies in 2010 redescribing the holotype, which was still the only known specimen at the time
• Crest on top of its head was hollow, to save weight, and may have been for display
• Crest runs from tip of snout (premaxilla) to over the nasals and towards the eyes (about three quarters the skull length), and is largely formed by nasal bones
• Crest has a broad base and narrow top, with a flat upper surface
• Nasal bone had lots of holes, with large air chambers, and nasal crest was rough with lots of bosses
• Had a smaller horn behind the eye socket
• Length of tail is not known (not found), but the base of the tail faces slightly downwards
• Type specimen had a pathology (tenth and eleventh neural spines fractured and fused together)
• Thomas Carr suggested in 2006 that Guanlong (theropod from the same formation with a crest) was a subadult Monolophosaurus. In 2010 Gregory Paul renamed Guanlong as a second species of Monolophosaurus, Monolophosaurus wucaii, but in 2010 Stephen Brusatte rejected this, and said that the Guanlong holotype was an adult, not a subadult
• Originally thought to be a megalosaur and was often thought to be an allosauroid, though now thought to be a tetanuran
• Thought to be most closely related to Chuandongocoelurus (another tetanuran that lived in the Jurassic in China)
• Tetanurans are “stiff tailed” theropods with straight tails that had a series of tendons

Fun Fact:

Some crocodilians grow into a color to match the water they live in. And a new study shows that baby Sunda gharials can change the color of their belly to match the brightness of their environment.

This episode was brought to you by:

TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and exhibits. You can see some amazing examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs.

Enter to win a TRX Dinosaurs-made 1:1 scale Velociraptor sculpture. It’s open to anyone in the US or Canada (except Quebec) ages 18 and older to win. Complete rules are at https://iknowdino.com/velociraptor-sculpture-sweepstakes-official-rules

This week’s link to enter is http://bit.ly/WinMe182