The Big Dinosaur Podcast

Episode 211 is all about Dracopelta, an ankylosaur with sides covered in overlapping armor.

We also interview Riley Black, a science writer who’s written for Smithsonian, National Geographic, Nature, Slate, and Jurassic World, to name a few. She has a blog, Laelaps, on Scientific American, and she’s written numerous books, including My Beloved Brontosaurus, Prehistoric Predators, and Written in Stone. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• A new dinosaur, and close relative to Carnotaurus, was named after the supervillain Thanos source
• The holotype jaw of Megalosaurus from the 1790s was chemically analyzed, they found Lead and Barium indicating two separate repairs source
• A rare opalized dinosaur toe bone of Kakuru kujani from South Australia resurfaced for sale online after five decades source
• Johnston Park has a new theropod on display, known as the Rosewood Swamp Tramper, along with other dinosaur statues source
• 39 juvenile Psittacosaurus went on display in Shenyang, Liaoning Province in China source
• The Museum of Science of the Chicxulub Crater just opened on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula source
• The Yale Peabody Museum renovations will begin in 2020, with plans to reopen the museum in the fall of 2023 source
• The Museum of the Rockies is offering Tours for Tots: Growing Dinosaurs on February 5 source
• The Dalton Wells dinosaur site, north of Moab, near Arches National Park in Utah, is going through a proposal to have an entity manage it to help manage vandalism source
• DinoFest 2019 is happening soon, on January 26 and 27 at the Natural History Museum of Utah in Salt Lake City source
• The Magic Forest amusement park in Lake George, New York has a new manager who plans on adding dinosaurs source
• A welding company in Kilgore, Texas has a steel raptor source
• A four-year-old received over 100 dinosaur toys from kind strangers after he lost his collection in the recent Camp Fire source

The dinosaur of the day: Dracopelta

• Ankylosaur that lived in the Jurassic in what is now Portugal
• Being from the Jurassic it was in the early stages of ankylosaur evolution
• It’s a nodasaur so it didn’t have a tail club
• Herbivorous
• Type species is Dracopelta zbyszewskii
• Name means “dragon shield”
• Species name in honor of the paleontologist Georges Zbyszewski
• -a portugese vertebrate paleontologist
• Described in 1980 by Peter Galton
• Only one known specimen, found in Ribamar. There are two localities called Ribamar in the same region of Portugal. One is from the Early Cretaceous, the other from the Late Jurassic. In 2003, Antunes and Mateus suggested Dracopelta probably came from the Late Jurassic locality
• Holotype is a partial skeleton, includes a rib cage, thirteen dorsal vertebrae, five different types of scutes, and ossified tendons
• It came out as a nice articulated block, but a large portion of the middle had eroded away
• It had a very broad back for its early Jurassic age. Similar to later ankylosaurs.
• It’s sides are covered with overlapping armor. The largest piece is 19cm by 11cm (7.5in x 4.3in)
• The fact that it had ossified tendons may mean that other relatives may have had them too
• Part of Ankylosauria, but considered to be incertae sedis (uncertain placement) within (could be ankylosaurid or nodosaurid)
• Other dinosaurs from the same formation include ornithopods, Hypsolophodon, the sauropods Apatosaurus, Brachiosaurus and Astrodon, the stegosaur Dacentrurus, the iguanodontid Camptosaurus, and the carnivore Megalosaurus
• The holotype is in the Museum of the Geological Survey of Portugal, Lisbon

Fun Fact:

X-rays can easily see through rock, but not lead. Basically because lead has so many more electrons than Silicon and Oxygen (the main components of rock).

Sponsors:

This episode is brought to you in part by TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and animatronics. Get a baby T. rex sculpture or other rewards by joining their Kickstarter! kck.st/2FRwB9p

And 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