Episode 330 is all about Sinusonasus, the “big toothed wave nose” troodontid from what is now northeast China.
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In this episode, we discuss:
News:
- A new ankylosaur find from Mongolia includes most of the body and limbs showing evidence of digging ability source
- A dinosaur toe bone was recently found in South Korea, possibly from Koreaceratops source
- The Field Museum in Chicago in the U.S. is offering free regular virtual tours of SUE the T. rex for classrooms source
- The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry has a new exhibit: Dinosaurs Revealed source
- The St. Louis Zoo is getting a new exhibit, Emerson Dinoroarus! source
- THEMUSEUM in Ontario, Canada is reopening with exhibit Dinosaurs: The Age of Big Weird Feathered Things source
- Destiny 2: Beyond Light is going to release dinosaur themed armor ornaments source
- Fortnite, Chapter 2 Season 6 hints at dinosaurs coming source
- So many people are wearing inflatable dinosaur costumes in England that a supermarket has banned them source
- TikTok has a dinosaur effect (but it doesn’t seem to be available in the US) source
- Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Season 3 will be coming on May 21, 2021 according to its new trailer source
The dinosaur of the day: Sinusonasus
- Troodontid theropod that lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Liaoning Province, China (Yixian Formation)
- Looks bird like, with elongated head and sickle claws on the second toes
- Not the same as Sinosaurus, a theropod that lived in the Early Jurassic in what is now Yunnan Province, China (Lufeng Formation)
- Type species is Sinusonasus magnodens
- Described by Xu Xing and Wang Xiaolin in 2004
- Genus name means “wave nose”
- From a side view, the nasal bones look like a sine wave (curvy, rises and falls)
- Species name means “big toothed”
- Had large teeth
- Front teeth were not serrated
- Carnivorous
- Small, Gregory Paul estimated in 2010 Sinusonasus was about 3 ft (1 m) long and weighed about 5.5 lb (2.5 kg)
- Other estimates that it weighed 22 lb (10 kg)
- May have had feathers, based on relatives found in the same formation having feathers
- Holotype, IVPP V 11527, is a partial skeleton with skull and fragments of the lower jaw, partial tail, pelvis, and hindlimbs
- Holotype was partially articulated, and compressed
- Had transitional anatomical features, with a more basal skull and more derived pelvis and hindlimbs
- Had proportionately large openings of the nasal cavity that extended posteriorly (in the back)
- Had a long lower leg, and foot was “arctometatarsal” (middle part of the middle metatarsal was pinched between the surrounding metatarsals), so probably a good runner
- Femur is about 5.5 in (14 cm) long
- Had a long neck of the thighbone (between the femoral head and shaft)
- Had a relatively short head, which was about 77% the length of the thighbone
- From a side view, had an extra opening (fenestrae) in the front outer side of the upper jaw
- Tail probably had about 30 vertebrae
- The chevrons (bony arch on tail vertebrae) at the end of the tail were very long, and would have fit together to form a plate on the bottom/underside of the tail
- Tail may have helped counterbalance and helped while running
- Thought to come from rapid evolutionary change from a group that originated in the Cretaceous (not from troodontids developing earlier in the Jurassic than previously thought)
- May show possibility of modular evolution in troodontids (certain parts evolved)
Fun Fact: Shanshanosaurus is to Tarbosaurus, as Nanotyrannus is to Tyrannosaurus.
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