The Big Dinosaur Podcast

Episode 160 is all about Scutellosaurus, an armored dinosaur whose name means “little shielded lizard.”

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• Halszkaraptor escuilliei looks like a swan with claws
• Tarchia teresae was found in Mongolia
• New hadrosauroid Zuoyunlong fills in a gap in hadrosauroid migration to North America
• Sauropod footprints found in South Korea have skin impressions
• The Denver Museum of Nature and Science received a donation of 6,000 Edmontosaurus bones
  • and their Triceratops “Tiny” turned out to be a Torosaurus (AKA adult Triceratops to some people)
• Kansas University Natural History Museum now has a four year old T. rex on display
• North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum has new T. rex teeth on display
• Jurassic Files posted an interview with Dr. Denver Fowler about the Badlands Dinosaur Museum
• The Cut published an article about why so many kids, over multiple generations, love dinosaurs
• Daily Dot had a fun post full of videos of what dinosaurs may have sounded like
• The Real T. rex will have a new sound recreation when it comes out on January 2
• The Day the Dinosaurs Died (the documentary is about the Chixilub crater) is coming to the U.S. on December 27 on PBS
• Doctor Who had a story in season 6, called “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship“
• There’s a new dinosaur park management sim game called Parkasaurus, coming to Steam early access next spring
• A new dinosaur book, called Bolivar features a dinosaur in New York City that everyone is too busy to notice
• Dino4hire is now booking their 2018 school educational dinosaur workshops
• The Etsy shop The Vanilla Studio sells a T. rex menorah and candlestick holders
• Some vandals stole a three-foot dinosaur wearing a Santa hat, but were promptly caught
• A mom bought a dinosaur pillow case that arrived with the image of a model lying on the pillow rather than just the dinosaur
• Chicago Mag published a great interview with Sue the T. rex
• Forbes published a geological review of the new Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom trailer
• David Orr from Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs published the results of the Great 2017 Paleoart Survey

The dinosaur of the day: Scutellosaurus

• • Thyreophoran ornithischian that lived in the Jurassic in what is now Arizona, in the U.S.
  • Armored dinosaur, whose closest relatives were probably Emausaurus and Scelidosaurus
  • Name means “little shielded lizard”
  • Only one species: Scutellosaurus lawleri
  • Species name is in honor of David Lawler, who found the fossil
  • Lawler, a grad student at University of California, Berkeley at the time, found the holotype at the West Moenkopi Plateau locality in the Silty Facies
  • Member of the Kayenta Formation, in Coconino County, Arizona (part of Navajo Nation), in 1971
  • Described by Edwin Colbert in 1981, based on the fossils Lawler found that were collected in 1977, and a second specimen
  • James Clark found six more specimens in 1983
  • Colbert originally thought it was related to Lesothosaurus, a basal ornithischian, and placed Scutellosaurus in the family Fabrosauridae, but the scutes and other features eventually put it in Thyreophora
  • One of the earliest armored dinosaurs, and the most basal one found so far
  • Too basal to be considered an ankylosaur or stegosaur
  • Had over 300 osteoderms on its neck, back, and tail, that formed parallel rows (up to five rows on each side)
  • Scutes were too small for species recognition, they were embedded like in crocodiles and not really visible
  • Scutes could have been used for defense
  • Potential predators at the time were Megapnosaurus and Dilophosaurus
  • Herbivore, had leaf-shaped cheek teeth
  • Small, lightly-built
  • Could grow up to 3.9 ft (1.2 m) long, and weighed 22 lb (10 kg)
  • Probably bipedal, though may have walked on all fours when eating
  • Had a long tail, probably for balance

Fun Fact:

Teresa Maryańska (Polish Paleontologist) named two ankylosaurs in 1977: Tarchia AKA the “brainy one” and Saichania AKA the “beautiful one”

Sponsor:

This episode is brought to you in part 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