The Big Dinosaur Podcast

In our 155th episode, we got to chat with Dr. Matthew Lamanna, assistant curator at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, whose research focuses on cretaceous dinosaurs of the southern hemisphere, with field research in Antarctica, Australia, Argentina, and Egypt, and the mesozoic evolution of birds. You can learn more about his work at Antarctic Peninsula Paleontology Project, at antarcticdinos.org.

Episode 155 is also about Appalachiosaurus, the most well known theropod from eastern North America.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• New herbivorous dinosaur, Matherodon provincialis, found with large scissor like teeth
• Chair of the Friends of Dinosaur Isle Museum shared an update about the Dinosaur Isle
• Dinosaurs Among Us, is opening November 18 at the science museum COSI in Columbus, Ohio 
• Big Bend National Park in Texas now has some dinosaurs on display
• There might be a two-part feature film about the life of Mary Anning, coming next summer
• The new Hulu show, Marvel’s Runaways, will feature a Jurassic Park style “velociraptor” as a main character
• Inflatable T. rex costumes were used coming home from school, running in Nashville, working at an airport, and dancing in New York
• In Jackson, Wisconsin, Lammscapes had nine dinosaur statues built out of strawbales

The dinosaur of the day: Appalachiosaurus

• Tyrannosauroid that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Alabama, US
• Name means “Appalachian lizard”
• Named after the region in the U.S., Appalachia, which is the same name as the island continent where Appalachiosaurus lived
• Only one species: Appalachiosaurus montgomeriensis
• Species name is for Montgomery County, in Alabama
• Most well known theropod from eastern North America
• Before Appalachiosaurus was found, the only other tyrannosaur found in the eastern part of the U.S. was Dryptosaurus (which is less derived than Appalachiosaurus)
• David King found the fossils in July 1982
• Fossils were found in central Alabama (Demopolis Chalk Formation)
• Named in 2005 by Thomas Carr, Thomas Williamson, and David Schwimmer
• Only a juvenile has been found so far
• Only partial remains have been found (parts of the skull, some vertebrae, parts of the pelvis, most of the hindlimbs)
• Fossils are at the McWane Science Center in Birmingham, Alabama
• Juvenile was over 23 ft (7 m) long and weighed 1300 lb (600 kg)
• Bipedal predator
• Very similar skeleton to Albertosaurus, though a comparison found that Albertosaurus had a stronger bite force, and the two would have filled different ecological niches
• Has six low crest lines on the top of its snout (ornamentation?), also seen in Alioramus, an Asian tyrannosaurid
• Not sure what its forelimbs looked like, though most large tyrannosaurids had small forelimbs with only two digits on each hand
• Deinosuchus tooth marks were found on Appalachiosaurus (and there are signs of healing, two tail vertebrae were fused together, possibly because of new bone growth after the injury)

Fun Fact:

Why did Ornithischians evolve quadrapedality? Possibly head mass (Ceratopsians); Herbivory (large guts to cope with lots of fiber); or a shift in posture with head near the ground.

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