Episode 269 is all about Hypsibema, a massive hadrosauroid and the state dinosaur of Missouri.
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In this episode, we discuss:
News:
- The new sauropod Itapeuasaurus was found on a beach in northern Brazil source
- Fushanosaurus was named from northwest China based on a single massive femur source
- Jardin d’Acclimation in Paris, France was covered in dinosaur projections source
- Two Canadian boys welcomed their grandma at the airport while all three dressed up as T. rex source
- Dinosaur World is coming to Cerritos, California on March 8 source
The dinosaur of the day: Hypsibema
- Hadrosauroid that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now North Carolina and Missouri, in the US
- Herbivorous
- Estimated to have around 1,000 small teeth
- Teeth were more serrated than other hadrosaurs, so may have eaten tough vegetation
- Probably had a beak
- Two species: Hypsibema crassicauda and Hypsibema missouriensis
- Hypsibema crassidicauda estimated to be 49 ft (15 m) long
- Hypsibema missouriensis was slightly smaller than Hypsibema crassicauda
- Estimated to be 14 tons, though some estimates put it at 17-20 tons
- Pretty large, could have been good defense against predators
- Type species: Hypsibema crassicauda
- Described in 1869 by Edward Cope, found in Sampson County, North Carolina
- Genus name means “high step”
- Cope thought it walked on its toes
- Species name means “with a fat tail”
- Multiple specimens found, though femur fragments thought to be part of the syntype were later found to come from a tyrannosauroid similar to Dryptosaurus
- Hypsibema missouriensis fossils first found in 1942, at the Chronister Dinosaur Site, near Glen Allen, Missouri (first dinosaur fossils found in the state, and the only ones found so far)
- Holotype of Hypsibema crassidicauda found at the King James marl pits in North Carolina (caudal vertebra, humerus, tibia, metatarsal)
- Probably lived near a large body of water
- The Chronister family first discovered Hypsibema missouriensis when digging a well (which they didn’t use because there ended up not being enough water)
- Described in 1945 by Charles Whitney Gilmore and Dan R. Stewart
- Stewart collected the fossils, and was nicknamed Dinosaur Dan
- Stewart told the Smithsonian about the find, who paid $50 for the bones (13 vertebrae from the tail). That money was used to buy a cow later. More fossils were later found
- Originally thought to be a sauropod, because Gilmore thought it was either a hadrosaur or sauropod, and then decided it couldn’t be a hadrosaur because of the chevrons and the “more elongate centra”; then a few decades later excavations started again at the site. Geologist Bruce Stinchcomb purchased the property, and in the late 1980s there were test excavations. Also found fish, turtles, plants, and teeth from a tyrannosauroidea dinosaur, as well as parts of the jaw and dental remains of Hybsiema missouriensis
- Originally called Neosaurus missouriensis, then renamed later in 1945 by Gilmore and Stewart to Parrosaurus missouriensis because the name Neosaurus was already the name for a synapsid
- Donald Baird and Jack Horner in 1979 found that Parrosaurus was a species of Hypsibema, named Hypsibema missouriensis
- Some thought Hypsibema missouriensis was dubious, and at least one scientist thinks Parrosaurus is a valid genus, and separate from Hypsibema (based on newer discoveries at the site where the holotype was found)
- Missouri state soil is not great for preserving fossils. Guy Darrough, a paleontologist from St. Louis siad it was “pretty much a miracle” that dinosaurs have been found there
- Hypsibema missouriensis is the official state dinosaur of Missouri, as of 2004
- Missouri was the 6th state in the US to have an official dinosaur (almost unanimous approval)
- Some Hypsibema missouriensis fossils are housed at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
- Can see a full sized model of the dinosaur at the Bollinger County Museum of Natural History in Missouri (the museum says having the official state dinosaur has tripled the number of visitors)
Fun Fact: There are about 22 titanosauriform sauropods that have been found in China to date. But only 3 have a Chinese name that matches the official Latinized name.
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