giant thief Archives - The Big Dinosaur Podcast

Episode 216 is all about Megaraptor, A large theropod with claws over one foot long (originally thought to be foot claws, now known to be hand claws).

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

Stegosaurus and Plateosaurus had much stronger bites than their close ancestors, while T. rex had a bite similar to its relatives source
A new model shows how the mega-tsunami at the end-cretaceous spread around the world source
The Planetario Alfa museum has an exhibit Dinosaurs Made in Mexico source
An Indian geologist stirred up controversy claiming that Hindu god Lord Brahma discovered dinosaurs source
In London at Greenwich Theatre there are two one act dinosaur-related plays running January 16 to 19 source
Turok the Dinosaur Hunter is getting a comic book reboot source

The dinosaur of the day: Megaraptor

Megaraptor (request from Andrew Batist, Andre Santos, Jake Posey, youtube, FB, email)
Phonetic: Meg-ah-rap-tor.
Theropod that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Patagonia
Type species is Megaraptor namunhuaiquii
Name means “giant thief”
Named in 1998 by Novas, based on a claw about 13 in (34 cm) long (possibly ~16 in or 40 cm long with a sheath) that looked like the sickle-claw of a dromaeosaurid
Later a complete front limb was found, and showed the claw was actually on the first finger of a hand (not a foot claw)
Hands were elongated
Species name means “foot lance” (Mapuche Indian names)
Carnivorous
Originally thought to be a large dromaeosaur-like coelurosaur
Now considered to be either a basal tyrannosauroid or a basal coelurosaur
Gregory S. Paul estimated in 2010 that Megaraptor was about 26 ft (8 m ) long and weighed 2,200 lb (1 tonne)
Can see Megaraptor in the game Warpath: Jurassic Park (made before the claw was known to be from the hand, so it’s displayed as a large dromaeosaur, and its codename is M-Raptor or Raptor)

Fun Fact: According to the latest model The initial wave created by the Chicxulub impactor and it’s 1.5km crest. The tube created under the wave would have been ~1/2km (~1800ft) in diameter. That’s large enough to fit even the largest supertanker ever made.

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This episode is brought to you in part by Indiana University Press. Their Life of the Past series is lavishly illustrated and meticulously documented to showcase the latest findings and most compelling interpretations in the ever-changing field of paleontology. Find their books at iupress.indiana.edu

In our 107th episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Brad Jost, host of the Jurassic Park Podcast. You can learn more about the Jurassic Park Podcast on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

Episode 107 is also about Gigantoraptor, a large oviraptor.

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In this episode, we discuss:

The dinosaur of the day: Gigantoraptor
Name means “giant seizer” or “giant thief”
Type species is Gigantoraptor erlianensis
Species name refers to the Erlian Basis where it was found
Discovered in 2005 in Mongolia
The holotype discovery was captured on film, when Xu Xing was asked to reenact the discovery of a different dinosaurs, the sauropod Sonidosaurus, in 2005 for a documentary. But when he cleaned the bone, he realized it was the thighbone of an unknown theropod, about the size of Albertosaurus, instead of Sonidosaurus
Xu described and named Gigantoraptor in 2007, along with Tan Qingwei, Wang Jianmin, Zhao Xijin, and Tan Lin
Found a subadult, with a partial skeleton (lower jaw, single neck vertebra, most of the back and tail)
Specimen is about 11 years old
Large oviraptorosaurian (largest)
Much larger than other oviraptors (about 3 times as long and 35 times more massive than Citipati)
Xu estimated Gigantoraptor to be about 26 ft (8 m) long
No direct evidence of feathers, but it’s possible, though even though other oviraptors had feathers, Gigantoraptor may have been too large and not needed feathers (though Xu Xing and others said it probably had at least arm feathers, since they could be used for display or brooding, and not needed to regulate body heat)
Not clear what it ate. Though some oviraptors were herbivores, Gigantoraptor had long legs and probably could move fast, and it also had large claws
Possible it had to be fast to run away from predators though, according to Gregory Paul
Had a long neck, like many herbivores
Had a toothless jaw, probably had a horny beak
Had strongly curved toe claws
The name Oviraptorosaur means “egg thief lizards”
They’re a group of feathered maniraptorans that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Asia and North America
They had short skulls, and widely vary in size (range from the size of a turkey to Gigantoraptor)
Fun fact: There are a lot of big dragons in fantasy, and it’s interesting to estimate what lift force they would need and how that would compare to Habib’s research… After reading a bundle of dragon forums (and there are a lot of them), here are some estimated sizes Smaug: length: ~60m (about the same as Amphicoelias); wingspan: ~100m conservatively; Weight: 100tons (100,000,000g); from geometry: wing area 1,000m2 ~ 2,000m2 (10,000,000 – 20,000,000cm2); requiring a constant: 5 to 10 g/cm2 (at least twice as much as the best birds can achieve). Even more problematic is that those figures are while gliding (constant lift). When flapping you’d have to create more force on the down stroke to make up for the lack of lift on the up stroke, putting far more than 50 tons of force on each joint where the wing attaches to the body. George R.R. Martin has said that early on he wasn’t sure if he wanted dragons in the series since they require magic since they make no sense aerodynamically and “you need some magic in a fantasy, but too much magic is like too much salt in a soup.”

This episode was brought to you by:

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For those who may prefer reading, see below for the full transcript of our chat with Brad Jost: