Episode 368 is all about Hypselospinus, a relative of Iguanodon which has also gone by the names Darwinsaurus and Wadhurstia.
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In this episode, we discuss:
News:
- We discuss the Non-Avian Theropod Systematics and the Paleopathology & Paleohistology sessions from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting source
- A company is planning to sell NFTs with the goal of buying a T. rex fossil source
- Jardin des Plantes in Paris, France has illuminated dinosaurs on display source
The dinosaur of the day: Hypselospinus
- Iguanodontian that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now East Sussex, England (possibly also from Spain)
- First described as a species of Iguanodon, by Richard Lydekker in 1889
- Looks similar to Iguanodon, quadrupedal with a bulky body and long tail
- Type species is Hypselospinus fittoni
- Genus name means “high thorn”, and refers to its high vertebral spines
- Species name is in honor of William Henry Fitton
- Lightly built
- Estimated to be 19.7 ft (6 m) long
- Had “long, narrow, and steeply inclined neural spines”
- Had a rectangular shaped skull and broad snout (for cropping plants)
- Fossils found near Rye in 1866
- David Norman reclassified Hypselospinus as its own genus in 2010
- Holotype includes left ilium, sacrum, tail vertebrae, and teeth
- Vertebrae had some unique features (sub-cylindrical centra and prominent posterior chevron facets)
- Later in 2010, Carpenter and Ishida reclassified Iguanodon fittoni to a new genus Wadhurstia. Because Hypselospinus was named first, Wadhurstia became a junior objective synonym
- In 2012, Gregory Paul named Darwinsaurus evolutionis based on a partial skeleton (fossils that used to be classified as Iguanodon fittoni, that Richard Owen described in 1842), but not everyone agrees with this
- Darwinsaurus means “Darwin’s lizard”
- In 2015, Bexhill Museum in the UK had a Hypselospinus skeleton on display
- Based on more fossils found in the area, including a well preserved tail bone
- Skeleton had most of the bones, including the arms and legs, but was missing the thumb spike
- A specimen in the Natural History Museum of London has been found with a partial right forearm and thumb spike, around 3 in (8 cm) long
Fun Fact: The deepest dive by a dinosaur is five times as deep as the world record for a human. The deepest dive for a flying bird is over twice as deep as the world record human.
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