Episode 332 is all about Micropachycephalosaurus, a small ceratopsian that was originally thought to be a relative of the dome-headed Pachycephalosaurus.
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In this episode, we discuss:
News:
- A new saurolophine hadrosaur named Ornatops was described from New Mexico source
- Phys.org shared some tips on how to hunt for fossils responsibly source
- The Virginia Museum of Natural History and the University of Lynchburg are planning a dinosaur dig with (paying) volunteers source
- The Museum of Earth in Ithaca, New York has a new exhibit, Daring to Dig: Women in American Paleontology source
- A new short film called Sea Dragon chronicles Mary Anning’s first ichthyosaur discovery source
- Stone Zoo in Massachusetts has an animatronic dinosaur exhibit until September 2021 source
- A recycled metal dinosaur named T-Bone is on display in Georgian woman’s front yard source
- The Canadian Encyclopedia includes a lot of details about dinosaur bonebeds, museums, and paleontologists source
- Fortnite now has raptors roaming the map source
- An anime series called Dinosaur Biyori, about three dinosaurs who live in an apartment together, is coming out this April source
- There might soon be a new world record for the largest gathering of people in dinosaur costumes source
The dinosaur of the day: Micropachycephalosaurus
- Ceratopsian that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Shandong Province, China (found in Laiyang, Wang Formation)
- Looks kind of like Psittacosaurus, small and bipedal and herbivorous and depicted in some art as having quills on the back or tail
- Pretty small, probably had to avoid predators (run away)
- Estimated to be 19.6 in to 23.6 in (50-60 cm) long
- Type and only species is Micropachycephalosaurus hongtuyanensis
- Longest dinosaur name? (23 letters) Lots of places say it, but these articles are a few years old so hard to confirm it still is
- Genus name means “tiny thick headed lizard”
- Originally thought to be a pachycephalosaur (the ones with dome-heads), hence the name
- Fossil found in 1972 during the study of a stratigraphic section in a cliff, near Laiyang train station
- Named in 1978 by Zhiming Dong
- Holotype included an incomplete skull, caudal vertebrae, part of the sacral girdle, and hind limb
- Fragment of left ilium (upper hip bone) also preserved
- Originally described as “parietal-squamosal crest is thickly inflated but relatively flat and undomed”
- No conspicuous skull ornamentation
- So top of head looked inflated but was pretty flat
- Described the jaw (mandible) as relatively high
- At the time Micropachycephalosaurus was named, there were two types of pachycephalosaur skulls: dome-headed and flat-headed, and in the same paper Dong named Micropachycephalosaurus he also said that the differences in skulls were not due to sexual dimorphism (as previously thought) but as phylogenetic characters
- Paul Sereno in 2000 considered Micropachycephalosaurus to be a nomen dubium
- In 2006 Sullivan and others did a taxonomic review of pachycephalosaurs and didn’t think Micropachycephalosaurus was a pachycephalosaur
- In 2009, Richard Butler and Qi Zhao said Micropachycephalosaurus was valid, even though it was fragmentary, because of prominent grooves on the surface of its vertebra
- Said Micropachycephalosaurus was an indeterminate Cerapoda, after not finding anything that link it with other pachycephalosaurs (thickened skull roof was missing, so they couldn’t confirm it existed)
- Said they could not support or refute the original pachycephalosaur classification
- Then in 2011, Butler and others did a cladistic analysis and found Micropachycephalosaurus to be a basal ceratopsian
Fun Fact: There are at least five ways to de-extinct a species, but only one is likely to result in something resembling a non-avian dinosaur.
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