The Big Dinosaur Podcast

Episode 140 is all about Liliensternus, a basal Neotheropod that lived in the Triassic in what is now Germany.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• New ornithomimid discovered in southern Mongolia, Aepyornithomimus tugrikinensis, described in Nature’s Scientific Reports
• Two new studies look into how fast dinosaurs could (or couldn’t) run
  • Bishop et al. looked at humans, modern birds, and dinosaur tracks and determined they likely used “grounded running”
  • Sellers et al. used computer models to simulate biomechanical stresses and found that T. rex wouldn’t have (aerial) run
• The first titanosaur with multiple pathologies (3 to be exact) was described in Cretaceous Research
• Connecticut now has an official state dinosaur, Dilophosaurus
• “T-rex” and Sauropod emojis are available on Facebook and Twitter and will soon be on iOS
• Fossilized hadrosaur teeth have been found in the Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan and are on display until Sept. 18
• The Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, VA has a Triceratops on display with T. rex bite marks
• From now until September 3, London Zoo has robotic dinosaurs at their Zoorasic Park exhibit
• The Westminster Collection released a 24-karat gold plated T. rex coin with a skeleton that shows under UV light
• Singapore released a new set of limited edition EZ-link cards with dinosaur prints

The dinosaur of the day: Liliensternus

• Basal Neotheropod that lived in the Triassic in what is now Germany
• Found in the Trossingen Formation along with fossils of Ruehleia, a sauropodomorph, by Count Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern, in 1932-1933
• Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern was a count, amateur paleontologist, and medical doctor. He founded a paleontological museum in his castle in Bedheim, Germany in July 1934
• Liliensternus specimens were in Hugo Rühle von Lilienstern’s castle until 1969, when they were moved to the Humboldt Museum in Berlin
• Liliensternus liliensterni is named after the count
• Liliensternus was originally assigned to Halticosaurus in 1934, as Halticosaurus liliensterni. Friedrich vone Huene named Halticosaurus in 1908, but now most bones thought to be Halticosaurus have been reassigned to other dinosaurs, including Liliensternus
• Type species is now Liliensternus liliensterni
• Gilles Cuny and Peter Galton described a new species, Liliensternus airelensis in 1993. But there were more differences found between Liliensternus airelensis and Liliensternus liliensterni, and in 2007 Martin Ezcurra and Cuny named it as a new genus, Lophostropheus
• Samuel Paul Welles found in 1984 that Halticosaurus longotarsus, the type species of Halticosaurus, was a nomen dubium. Most descriptions of Halticosaurus were about Halticosaurus liliensterni, so Welles named the new genus Liliensternus in 1984
• A left metatarsal found in 1834 was later assigned to Liliensternus (first thought to be a manual or pedal element in 1855, then in 1908 thought to be a pubic fragment of Plateosaurus, then re-identified as part of Liliensternus in 2003
• More bones found in 1961 were referred to Liliensternus in 1992 by Sander (found in Switzerland)
• Specimens found may have been a juvenile or subadult
• Two specimens found (parts of skull, lower jaws, vertebrae, tibia, femur)
• Up to 17 ft (5 m) long, and weighed 280 lb (127 kg), though some estimate it to weigh up to 441 lb (200 kg)
• Could be an intermediate between Coelophysis and Dilophosaurus
• Tibia is shorter than femur (just like Dilophosaurus)
• May have had a crest, like Dilophosaurus, but skull is not well known
• Also has a short hip bone (ilium) like Dilophosaurus
• In 1989 Rowe said that Liliensternus was more derived than Dilophosaurus
• Bipedal carnivore
• May have preyed on Plateosaurus, a basal sauropodomorph that lived around the same time and place
• Was probably fast, and could catch ornithischians, and could use its teeth to slash and wound prosauropods, like Plateosaurus
• Probably lived on floodplains along with reptiles and therapsids (which gave rise to mammals)

Fun Fact:

“Transitional” (fossil) is a misleading term

Published in Palaeontologia Electronica By Mario Bronzati

“Transitional” implies some type of design or desired evolutionary path

• Evolution is completely random
• Hindsight bias makes things look transitional
• Implies that we’re finding missing links, but evolution isn’t a straight path
  • It’s like a shrub with tons of dead-ends all over the place
• It’s also used inconsistently, which gaps have transitional fossils?
• Bronzati recommends “bridging gaps” rather than finding “transitional taxons”