The Big Dinosaur Podcast

Episode 138 is all about Antarctopelta, a stocky, armored dinosaur.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• A new set of giant theropod tracks, Jurabrontes, found in Switzerland and described in Historical Biology and previously on SwissInfo
• A new titanosaur, Europatitan eastwoodi, named after Clint Eastwood was discovered in Spain and described in PeerJ
• Charles Sternberg may have uncovered a new hadrosaur almost 100 years ago that is just now being realized according to FASEBJ
• A dinosaur tracksite in Plagne, France is the longest of its type according to Geobios
• Just because a dinosaur footprint doesn’t look like a foot doesn’t mean it’s not “well preserved” details in JVP
• New dinosaur tracks in Cameroon, Africa may help teach us about the Trans-Saharan Seaway according to the Journal of African Earth Sciences
• The first ever dinosaur tracks may have been found in Gabon, Africa according to Geodiversitas
• A near complete skeleton of an Iguanodon was found at a brick factory in Surrey, UK according to The Gaurdian
• Scientists at the Fukui Prefecture in Japan found a large carnivore tooth 
• More dinosaur tracks have been found in Dinosaur Valley State Park in Texas after a heavy rain exposed them
• The new website Jurassic Files was launched to discuss paleontology and its benefits to science
• Smithsonian Mag wrote a feature about Clayton Phipps, a.k.a. The Dinosaur Cowboy who found the Dueling Dinosaurs of Montana
• Most National Park dinosaur discoveries are from the Colorado Plateau and Alaska
• A new temporary exhibit is at Utah State University called “Clubs, Horns and Shields: Armored Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals”
• The Virginia Museum of Natural History is having a Dino Festival from July 21 and 22 to celebrate its new exhibit, Dinosaurs: Reign of the Giants
• The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis in Indiana is offering dinosaur digs for families, teachers, and adults
• Dan Chure, who has been the palaeontogist at Dinosaur National Monument for 38 years (since 1979) has retired
• Jim Kirkland recently received the 2017 Crawford Award for his paleontology work in Utah
• Henry Sharpe, a 15 year old paleoartist, is a future paleontologist who volunteers at the Royal Ontario Museum Kids’ Camp according to Mostly Mammoths
• Paleoart: Visions of the Prehistoric Past is a new book showing a visual history of artwork inspired by paleontology
• Inverse published two articles about the science and inaccuracies in The Land Before Time
• Atlas Obscura shared more information about Gertie the dinosaur, the original animated dinosaur
• Jen Lewis replaced dinosaurs in Jurassic Park with characters from the TV show Dinosaurs
• Do we need to treat dinosaurs more nicely? Carlos Perez thinks so
• A woman dressed up in an inflatable T. rex costume and took boudoir photos for her fiance
• Smitten is selling purple dinosaur capri leggins
• The VR dinosaur hunting game Island 359 was released in the Oculus store and on Steam

The dinosaur of the day: Antarctopelta

• Name means Antarctic shield
• Lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Antarctica
• Hard to classify, because it had characteristics of two different families (ankylosaur and nodosaur)
• Thompson and others in 2011 suggested it is the basal most known nodosaurid
• Only one species: Antarctopelta oliveroi
• Species name is in honor of Eduardo Olivero (found the holotype, first mentioned it in print, and worked in Antarctica for many years)
• Discovered in 1986 on James Ross Island by Argentine geologists Eduardo Olivero and Roberta Scasso (they were hiking and spotted fragments)
• Was the first dinosaur found on Antarctica, but the second dinosaur from Antarctica to be formally named (first one named was Cryolophosaurus, which was found in 1993)
• Found in shallow marine deposits
• Took almost a decade to excavate because of harsh weather and frozen ground
• Holotype consists of three teeth, part of the lower jaw, skull fragments, vertebrae, partial limb bones, toe bones, and pieces of armor
• Lots of bones in poor condition because they were fragmented by freeze-thaw weathering
• Had been written about in previous publications (1987, 1991), but not named until 2006
• Named by Leondardo Salgado and Zulma Gasparini
• Medium sized, estimated to be about 13 ft (4 m) long
• Stocky
• Herbivorous
• Had leaf-shaped asymmetrical teeth
• Had large teeth compared to other ankylosaurs (largest one was 0.4 in or 10 mm across)
• Quadrupedal
• Six different osteoderms were found near Antarctopelta, but not many were articulated with the skeleton, so it’s unclear where they were on the body
• One osteoderm is the base of a large spike
• Also flat, oblong plates, similar to the ones that were around the neck of the nodosaurid Edmontonia
• Also had large, armor circular plates with smaller, polygonal nodules, that may have formed a shield over the hips
• Had an oval-shaped osteoderm with a keel running down the middle (found in the ribs so may have run in rows along its flank)
• And had ossicles (small bony nodules) that were probably all around the body
• Not much of the skull is known, but all skull fragments found were heavily ossified
• One bone, a supraorbital, had a short spike that would have come outwards over the eye
• Not all of the tail was found, but some of the vertebrae found probably was near the tip of the tail and they had ossified tendons, which would have stiffened the tail (probably to support a tail club, though that has not been found for Antarctopelta)
• Nodosaurs do not have club tails
• At first scientists thought it was a juvenile, but parts of the vertebrae were fused together (as seen in adults) so may be a subadult
• Earth was warmer when Antarctopelta lived (no ice in Antarctica then)
• Lived in forests with conifers and possibly deciduous trees
• But still would have been dark for long periods of time in the winter
• Antarctic Peninsula at this time was connected to South America, so animals could have traveled between continents (though no evidence yet of common ankylosaurs between Antarctica and South America)
• Probably lived in the same area and time as ornithopods like Trinisaura

Fun Fact:

What is the difference between a Asteroid, meteoroid, comet, meteor, and meteorite?

According to the Center for Near Earth Object Studies, a division of NASA:

• Comet
  • A relatively small, at times active, object whose ices can vaporize in sunlight forming an atmosphere (coma) of dust and gas and, sometimes, a tail of dust and/or gas. (Usually from the outer solar system)
• Asteroid
  • A relatively small, inactive, rocky body orbiting the Sun. (Usually from the asteroid belt)
• Meteoroid
  • A small particle from a comet or asteroid orbiting the Sun.
• Meteor
  • The light phenomenon which results when a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere and vaporizes; a shooting star.
• Meteorite
  • A meteoroid that survives its passage through the Earth’s atmosphere and lands upon the Earth’s surface.

Some define meteoroids as pieces of comets or asteroids

Threshold between meteoroid and asteroid? Technically “significantly smaller than an asteroid and considerably larger than an atom or molecule” Typically 1 to 10m and below is a meteoroid and larger is an asteroid, but some consider the line more like 1km

According to the Lunar and Planetary Institute the Chicxulub impactor was probably an asteroid or comet 10 to 15 kilometers in diameter (6 to 7.5 miles)

• Definitely too big to be a meteoroid

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