Episode 190 is all about Nomingia, an oviraptorid with a bird-like pygostyle which may have held up a fan of feathers.
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:
- A team of researchers think titanosaurs made their eggs extra thick to protect them from acidic hotsprings
- A review of dinosaur egg research, including how to tell body temperature from the isotopes in the shell
- A nine-year-old kid, Ashton Rowsell, found an Iguanodon vertebra on the Isle of Wight, UK while playing on the beach
- Sandy Township in DuBois, Pennsylvania will have a new dinosaur exhibit sometime soon
- In Chelsea, Massachusetts, Mystic Brewery will be relaunching a beer this fall in honor of the Saugus orange dinosaur
- Drumheller, Alberta, has a new metal dinosaur called Locks of Love-a-Saurus, made by welding shop students
- an online shop called LovePop that makes Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom pop-up cards available costing $15 a pop
- A Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom restaurant is temporarily open in Tokyo, Japan
The dinosaur of the day: Nomingia
- Oviraptorid theropod that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Mongolia
- Medium-sized, about 5.6 ft (1.7 m) long and weighed 44 lb (20 kg)
- Had a pygostyle tail, with five fused vertebrae (probably had a feather fan)
- Tail was shorter than most dinosaur tails
- Could have used tail for display, where one bowed towards another and raised its tail, and the one with the largest and best developed tail would be considered the most attractive
- Before Nomingia, this bone structure was only found in birds
- Would not have been able to fly
- Also had a beak, and probably had a crest for display
- Holotype found in 1994 by the Mongolian-Japanese Palaeontological Expedition, in the Nemegt Svita, found partial left leg, pelvic girdle, and most of the spine
- Described in 2000 by Barsbold and others
- Only one species: Nomingia gobiensis
- Name refers to where the fossils were found (Nomingiin Gobi is a nearby part of the Gobi Desert, where it was found)
- Unclear what it ate
- Other dinosaurs that lived in the same time and place include the ornithomimosaur Gallimimus, the therizinosaur Therizinosaurus, the hadrosaur Saurolophus, the ankylosaur Tarchia, the sauropod Nemegtosaurus, the dromaeosaur Adasaurus, the troodont Zanabazar, and tyrannosaurus such as Alioramus and Tarbosaurus
Fun Fact:
Some dinosaurs that sat on eggs may have had to frequently “turn” their eggs. Modern dinosaurs (birds) turn their eggs non-stop about every 30 minutes the entire time they are brooding ~2 weeks–2 months.
This episode was brought to you by:
TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and exhibits. You can see some amazing examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs.
