Episode 341 is all about Vagaceratops, a chasmosaurine ceratopsian with a frill that was wider than it was long.
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In this episode, we discuss:
News:
- Fylax thyrakolasus is officially the last known non-hadrosaurid hadrosauroid source
- Massospondylus had a plastic growth pattern that varied in rate from year to year source
- The National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, OH, is having a free event on June 12 called Operation: Dinosaur source
- Dinosaur World opened in Cumberland County, North Carolina source
- Dickinson’s Dinosaur Museum has re-opened in Dickinson, North Dakota source
- The new Mayer Museum at Angelo State University in Texas has dinosaur replicas throughout the building source
- St. Paul, Minnesota’s Children’s Museum has the exhibition Dinosaurs: Land of Fire and Ice until Sept 6 source
- A T. rex is now on display next to the Tate Geological Museum at Casper College in Wyoming source
- In Brisbane, Australia, BrickResales’ showroom is displaying LEGO fossil builds source
- Battell Park and Beutter Park in Mishawaka, Indiana have QR codes for Augmented Reality dinosaurs source
- A fan theory for Jurassic World suggests that Dr. Wu is going to create robot dinosaurs to fight their organic counterparts source
- Glen McIntosh, who has worked on several films in the Jurassic Park series, has a redesigned website featuring his collection and new work source
The dinosaur of the day: Vagaceratops
- Chasmosaurine ceratopsian that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Alberta, Canada
- Walked on four legs, had a parrot-like beak, large neck frill that curled forward, and a nasal horn
- Brow horns were reduced, more like bosses
- Had a large snout with a broad, short horn
- Frill was shorter and more square-shaped compared to the frills of other chasmosaurines (wider than it was long)
- Had smaller parietal fenestrae compared to other ceratopsids (had two large holes in the frill probably covered by skin)
- Had ten epoccipitals (small bones surrounding the frill), and eight of them were flattened and curved forward and upward
- Herbivorous
- Complete maxilla had about 28 teeth
- Alex Tirabasso, an artist for the Canadian Museum of Nature, made 3D models of Vagaceratops to see if ceratopsians walked with their legs sprawled, or with their forelimbs like pillars beneath them, or somewhere in between. He found the in between posture worked the best, so Vagaceratops and its relatives walked with their limbs slightly bent
- Type species is Vagaceratops irvinensis
- Originally described as a new species of Chasmosaurus, Chasmosaurus irvinensis, in 2001 (by Robert Holmes, Catherine Forster, Michael Ryan, Kieran Shepherd)
- Named a new species in part because of its broad snout, no/low brow horns (in place of brow horns are a pit or rugosities that may show bone resorption), and the frill
- Named in 2010 by Scott Sampson and others
- Genus name means “wandering horned face”
- Genus name refers to it being a close relative of Kosmoceratops (and Kosmoceratops was found much further away, in Utah, US)
- In 2010 paper by Scott Sampson and others, found that Kosmoceratops and Vagaceratops had similar derived frills (with the fenestrae and the curving forward bones)
- Found Kosmoceratops and Vagaceratops to be sister taxon and not closely related to Chasmosaurus
- Named in the same paper that named Utahceratops gettyi and Kosmoceratops richardsoni
- Talked about Kosmoceratops in episode 173 and Utahceratops in episode 65
- Found in the Upper Dinosaur Park Formation, and much younger than Chasmosaurus belli and Chasmosaurus russelli
- Type specimen found by Luke Lindoe near Irvine, Alberta, and then collected by Wann Langston in 1958. Includes most of the skull and postcranial skeleton in an upright, crouched position. Found in one block (except the snout, which fell to pieces before it was discovered and collected separately)
- Skull mostly complete, but fragmented, and postcranial skeleton nearly complete, minus the tail
- Skull made of several hundred fragments
- Thought to be an adult because lots of coossifications
- Tentatively thought to be Chasmosaurus belli based on the shape of the partially exposed frill
- Remained in storage in jackets until the 1980s at the Canadian Museum of Nature
- Wann Langston and Dale Russell started preparing in the late 1980s, as part of a debate about ceratopsian forelimb posture
- Found it was a new taxon
- Two additional specimens found in the same area, referred to Chasmosaurus irvinensis. One was a crushed skull, another a fragmentary skull
- Lots of debate around Vagaceratops, and whether or not its a valid genus
- Some scientists have said they think Vagaceratops is an adult form of Kosmoceratops; others have said they think it’s more closely related to Chasmosaurus, and others say it was a sister taxon to Kosmoceratops
- In 2016 Campbell and others found the frill of Vagaceratops was enough to make it distinct, but found Chasmosaurus and Vagaceratops to be in a clade together. Did not attribute the other two skull specimens to Vagaceratops and said they showed individual variation within Chasmosaurus belli
- In 2019, James Campbell and others looked at Vagaceratops and tentatively reassigned it to Chasmosaurus, and said more fossils are needed to confirm or refute
- Also said “the interrelationships between Chasmosaurus irvinensis, Chasmosaurus belli, and Chasmosaurus russelli remain unclear”
- Also said they wouldn’t formally assign the two skulls previously referred to Vagaceratops irvinensis to Chasmosaurus irvinensis, and reassigned them to Chasmosaurus species
- In a phylogenetic analysis, found Chasmosaurus and Vagaceratops to be in a monophyletic clade
- 2020 paper: Denver Fowler and Elizabeth Freedman Fowler (Transitional evolutionary forms in chasmosaurine ceratopsid dinosaurs: evidence from the Campanian of New Mexico)
- Referred to Vagaceratops (Chasmosaurus) irvinensis and Vagaceratops irvinensis
- Hypothesized that Vagaceratops and Kosmoceratops show the most derived and successively youngest members of a Chasmosaurus lineage
Fun Fact: Both the Jurassic Park novel and movie have more dinosaurs from the Cretaceous than the Jurassic.
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