The Big Dinosaur Podcast

In our 145th episode, we got to chat with Matthew Baron, about Ornithoscelida and classifying dinosaurs. You can follow him on Twitter @MattExtinctions!

Episode 145 is also about Piatnitzkysaurus, a megalosaurid theropod that lived in the Jurassic in what is now Argentina.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• We cover the presentations from the first day of SVP. Abstracts can be downloaded from the SVP homepage here
• A Triceratops skull has been found near Denver, Colorado, by workers building a new public safety building in Thornton
• Volunteers who helped dig for fossils for the North Dakota Geological Survey found two big T.rex teeth
• In Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, paleontologists have found a new dinosaur track
• In Seattle, Washington, visitors to the Burke Museum can see paleontologists prepare a T.rex skull
• From now until September 3, the Museum of Natural Sciences in Barcelona, Spain has a Spinosaurus exhibit
• Jurassic Files published a piece on  Andrew Milner, city paleontologist and curator at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site
• The American Museum of Natural History has published archival footage of Roy Chapman Andrew’s expeditions to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia in the 1920s
• The Milwaukee Public Museum has two ambassadors, Carla and Carl (two people who go around town in inflatable T. rex costumes)
• We recently heard about Jurassic Foundation, which gives grants up to $3,000 for dinosaur paleontology
• Anna Rothschild, host of Gross Science, posted a video about how dinosaurs had intestinal parasites, based on coprolites that have been found
• Larry Kaplan, a man in Pennsylvania is raising money for ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, by dressing up as a dinosaur and surprising people
• The World of Dinosaurs Fast Fact Book is for sale in the dollar section at Target
• In Beatrice, Nebraska, police are looking for a stolen dinosaur shaped bounce house
• In the UK, Morrisons is selling dinosaur planters (including plants) for 5 pounds each
• The 82nd Airborne Division created a dinosaur photo illustration to celebrate their Centennial Week
• Chocolate Construction has made a mold to create a chocolate T. rex
• Home Depot has dinosaur skeleton Halloween decorations

The dinosaur of the day: Piatnitzkysaurus

• Megalosaurid theropod that lived in the Jurassic in what is now Argentina
• Two partial skeletons have been found (including a fractured skull)
• Fossils collected in 1977, 1982, 1983
• Described in 1979 by Jose Bonapart
• Type species is Piatnitzkysaurus floresi
• Name means Piatnitzky’s lizard
• Named in honor of Alejandro Matveievich Piatnitzky, a Russian Argentine geologist
• Medium-sized, with a light build
• Bipedal carnivore
• Could be up to 14.1 ft (4.3 m) long and weigh 990 lb (440 kg)
• Holotype found is a subadult, so may have grown larger
• Had strong arms and legs (four toes on each foot)
• Probably hunted small dinosaurs, and probably also scavenged
• Similar braincase to Piveteausaurus, a theropod found in northern France
• Other dinosaurs that lived in the same time and place include Eoabelisaurus (abelisaurid), Patagosaurus (eusauropodon), Volkheimeria (eusauropodon), Tehuelchesaurus

Fun Fact:

The bone wars continued past the two main participants’ deaths. Before Edward Drinker Cope died, he arranged to have his brain removed from his brain and weighed. At the time brain weight was thought to be indicative of one’s intelligence, and he wanted his brain to be compared to Othniel Charles Marsh’s brain. However, when Marsh died, he had no interest in the competition and didn’t consent to an autopsy.

And if you’re interested in our Brontosaurus children’s book check out http://iknowdino.com/books/what-happened-to-brontosaurus/