Episode 298 is all about Scolosaurus, an ankylosaurid with a large round club that’s on display at the Natural History Museum in London.
Big thanks to all our patrons! Your support means so much to us and keeps us going! If you’re a dinosaur enthusiast, join our growing community on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/iknowdino.
You can listen to our free podcast, with all our episodes, on Apple Podcasts at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/i-know-dino/id960976813?mt=2
In this episode, we discuss:
News:
- Trierarchuncus prairiensis, a new alvarezsaurid was named for its curved claws source
- A Guinness World Record was awarded to a Japanese fossil for being the world’s smallest non-avian dinosaur egg source
- Taiwan National Museum now has AR dinosaur tours. source
- The Field Museum at Chicago in the U.S. has a new lifelike model of Sue the T. rex nicknamed “Fleshy” source
- Brookfield Zoo has an exhibit until November 1st named Dinos Everywhere source
- Someone representing Sue in an inflatable T. rex costume visited penguins at the nearby Shedd Aquarium source
- A letter from Mary Anning sold for over 100,000 pounds source
- Sir Richard Owen’s hometown of Lancaster, UK celebrated dinosaur day source
- Iggy the metal dinosaur sculpture is back on display in Maidstone, UK source
The dinosaur of the day: Scolosaurus
- Ankylosaurid that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Alberta, Canada (Dinosaur Park Formation / Oldman Formation, exact locality is uncertain)
- Herbivorous
- Estimated to be about 20 ft (6 m) long
- Had a lot of osteoderms and a clubbed tail
- Osteoderms were mostly conical, subconical, or mammillary in shape (nipple shaped)
- Texture of osteoderms were rough and pointy
- Discovered in 1914 by fossil collector William Edmund Cutler, in fine-grained sandstone and claystone sediments
- Named in 1928 by Franz Nopcsa
- Holotype included a nearly complete skeleton (missing the end of the tail, right forelimb, right hindlimb, and skull)
- Also included osteoderms and skin impressions
- Holotype is in the collections of the Natural History Museum in London
- Genus name means “pointed stake lizard”
- Species name is in honor of Cutler, who was injured when the fossils fell on him while he was excavating
- In 1971, Walter Coombs synonymized Scolosaurus, along with Anodontosaurus lambei and Dyloplosaurus acutosquameus with Euoplocephalus tutus, but didn’t really explain why. He wrote it was based on “the numerous ankylosaurid skulls known from the Oldman Formation [now Dinosaur Park Formation] and Member E, the Edmonton Formation [now Horseshoe Canyon Formation]”
- Coombs said there was only one genera of ankylosaurid that lived in that time and place, and Euoplocephalus was named first (though the holotype was fragmentary)
- At first, this synonymization was accepted and Scolosaurus cutleri became Euoplocephalus cutleri
- In 2013, Paul Penkalski and William Blows resdescribed Scolosaurus and found it to be a valid taxon
- Penkalski and Blows found that Scolosaurus had different cervical (neck) armor and the structure of the forelimb was different from Euoplocephalus, and they also found differences in the pelvis and armor between Scolosaurus and Dyloplosaurus
- Because the holotype is so complete, many reconstructions for Euoplocephalus were based on the Scolosaurus specimen (especially the armor patterns, which are based on the osteoderms found in situ on the Scolosaurus holotype)
- Arbour and Currie found that Scolosaurus was unique because of a number of features including the squamosal horns (back of the head) were proportionately larger, backswept, and had distinct apices (peaks); the caputegula (skull armor) had a unique pattern; there were conical osteoderms on the tail, there were large, circular osteoderms with low central prominences (didn’t stick out much) and compressed, half-moon shaped lateral (on the side) osteoderms on the cervical (neck) half rings; and the knob at the end of its tail looked circular from above
- Based on the humerus and other bones, Scolosaurus was as large or larger than Euoplocephalus and other ankylosaurids from the same region/time
- Pedal unguals (claws on the feet) were hoof shaped, compared to Dyoplosaurus which was triangular
- Lots of referred Scolosaurus specimens, which include skull, vertebrae, ribs, femora, tibiae, fibulae, and more
- Arbour and Currie also assigned another specimen, USNM 7943, to Scolosaurus (a partial cervical ring found in 1874 in the Frenchman Formation in Alberta), which is now housed at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
- Another specimen, USNM 11892 was found in 1928 in Two Medicine Formation, a partial skull, and is also at the Smithsonian
- Scolosaurus specimens found mostly in Two Medicine Formation in Montana
- Another specimen (MOR 433), formerly known as Oohkotokia (O-OH-ko-toke-ee-uh), was reassigned to Scolosaurus in 2013 by Victoria Arbour and Phil Currie (Penkalski had named Oohkotokia earlier in 2013). Not everyone agrees
- Specimens coming from Oldman/Dinosaur Park and Two Medicine Formations is why not everyone agrees Scolosaurus and Oohkotokia are synonymous. However, the Oldman Formation during when Scolosaurus lived was pretty dry compared to the Dinosaur Park Formation because the Western Interior Seaway had regressed so far. The Upper Two Medicine Formation also had a dry environment compared to Judith River Formation and Dinosaur Park Formation, which are nearby. Would need skull material to confirm if they are synonymous or not, otherwise they seem similar
- Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place included hadrosaurs Hypacrosaurus, Gryposaurus, Maiasaura, ankylosaur Edmontonia, oviraptorosaurs Caenagnathus and Chirostenotes, ornithopods like Orodromeus, ceratopsians Brachyceratops, Prenoceratops, and Rubeosaurus, and dromaeosaurs Bambiraptor and Saurornitholestes, and tyrannosaurids Daspletosaurus and Gorgosaurus
- Also lots of fish, such as sharks, rays, sturgeons, gars, and amphibians, reptiles, lizards, crocodilians, pterosaurs, birds, and some mammals
Fun Fact: Alvarezsaurs have quite a bit in common with modern termite eating specialists.
