Episode 369 is all about Saturnalia, a small Late Triassic sauropodomorph that may have hunted small prey.
We also interview Richard Fallon, a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at the University of Birmingham, who studies the interactions and overlaps between literature and science. He’s also the author of the book, Reimagining Dinosaurs in Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature. Follow him on Twitter @dr_r_fallon.
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In this episode, we discuss:
News:
- A T. rex skeleton which was recently mounted in Upper Bavaria, Germany will be returning to the US source
- London’s Natural History Museum dressed up their animatronic T. rex in a “Jurassic jumper” source
- Jurassic World: The Exhibition is going to Denver, Colorado on March 4, 2022 source
The dinosaur of the day: Saturnalia
- Basal sauropodomorph that lived in the Late Triassic in what is now Brazil (Santa Maria Formation of Rio Grande) and possibly Zimbabwe (Pebbly Arkose Formation)
- Had a mix of sauropodomorph and theropod characteristics (hard to classify)
- Small, with a long neck and long tail, and short arms
- Gracile body
- Estimated to be 5 ft (1.5 m) long
- Type species is Saturnalia tupiniquim
- Named in 1999 by Max Langer and others
- Genus name means “carnival” in Latin and refers to the fossils being found during the feasting period
- Species name comes from Portuguese and Guarani and is “an endearing way of referring to native things from Brazil”
- Saturnalia was a popular Roman festival, dedicated to the Roman god Saturn
- Originally celebrated on December 17, then extended to last a full week
- Celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, banquet, gift giving, and lots of parties/carnivals (also allowed to gamble)
- Also named a mock king (Saturnalicius princeps)
- Gifts included wax figurines, dice, combs, toothpicks, axes, perfumes, parrots, clothing, books, and more
- Sometimes had verses to go with the gifts (like cards today)
- Many of the Saturnalia customs became customs or influenced Christmas and New Year
- Saturnalia named based on three partial skeletons, all found in the same area in 1988
- Holotype includes a well-preserved, semi-articulated skeleton (vertebrae, pectoral girdle, right humerus, partial right ulna, pelvic girdle, left femur, most of the right hind limb)
- Paratypes include partial mandible with teeth and partial skeleton (vertebrae, pectoral girdle, right humerus, right side of the pelvic girdle, most of the right hind limb)
- Possible a partial femur found in Zimbabwe belongs to Saturnalia
- Second dinosaur found in the Carnian “Alemoa-beds” of southern Brazil, one of the oldest strata with dinosaur fossils
- Discovery helped show evidence of widespread distribution of early sauropodomorphs in the Late Carnian
- In 2003, Max Langer published more details about the anatomy
- Found the first metatarsal to be much shorter than second and third ones (60% the length of the second, 55% the length of the third)
- Had scars and other traces of muscle attachments
- Found it had limbs adapted to running, more so than typical sauropodomorphs
- Could walk on two or four legs, but probably bipedal when moving fast
- Probably not an obligatory biped
- Probably walked on two legs more often than other prosauropods, to run away from predators or hunt for small prey
- Gait was “probably somewhere between that of a fully bipedal dinosaur like Coelophysis and that of forms such as Plateosaurus, which were mainly quadrupedal, becoming bipedal only at high speeds”
- In 2017, Mario Bronzati and others studied the endocast of Saturnalia
- Looked at the floccular fossae lobe (FFL), which is “part of the systems operating to control eyes, neck, and head movements”
- The apparent smaller volume of FFL in sauropods has in the past been thought to be linked to sauropods being quadrupedal (idea is you need more balance control when bipedal versus quadrupedal, and balance involves the FFL and inner ear)
- But, FFL volume has been found to vary in other dinosaur endocast studies, including theropods, so FFL may not be related to locomotion
- Possible that a well-developed flocculus could be linked to predatory behavior, because it helps the dinosaur move its neck and skull quickly
- Also studied the teeth and found recurved teeth with small serrations
- Based on studying Plateosaurus and Saturnalia, possible FFL went down in bipedal sauropodomorphs before they evolved to be quadrupedal, and may have been linked to their herbivorous diet
- In 2019, Mario Bronzati and others studied the skull remains of Saturnalia
- CT scanned the skull bones of one of the paratypes
- Found that the small skull may be related to “an increased efficiency for predatory feeding behavior, allowing fast movements of the head in order to secure small and elusive prey” (supports the endocast study)
- Had a short skull
- Skull lightweight and was about 3.9 in (10 mm) long, small compared to the rest of the body
- To recap, small skull helped with the long neck, which helped later sauropods eat plants other animals couldn’t reach, and eventually gave them an advantage and helped them grow so large
- May have been able to move its head quickly, and go after small prey
- Had heterodont teeth, where some were more leaf-shaped and others higher and coarsely serrated
- May have been omnivorous, eating lizards, mammals, insects, and may have also eaten plants
Fun Fact: In 2017 a nest of about 20–30 fossilized dinosaur eggs was found on Christmas morning.
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