The Big Dinosaur Podcast

Episode 143 is all about Paralititan, a titanosaur that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Egypt, in the Bahariya Formation.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• Chilesaurus may provide more evidence for the Ornithoscelida dinosaur classification, representing an early ornithischian after branching from theropoda
• Researchers from the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada have found an ankylosaur skull (Euoplocephalus) in southern Alberta
• Several new dinosaur tracks discovered
  • New sets of tracks in Northwest Switzerland, in the Jura mountains (the origin of the Jurassic era’s name)
  • Prints from the North Slope of Alaska are the farthest North Maastrichtian footprints found to date
  • Late Jurassic ankylosaur prints found in Brazil, making the oldest thyreophoran evidence from South America
• Two new papers look at the validity of a previously found stegosaur plate and tail spine
• Endangered lesser bats have made a Triceratops sculpture in Combe Martin, UK there home
• Haruo Nakajima, the Japanese actor who played the original Godzilla, has passed away at the age of 88
• A doctor in Texas who purchased a Tarbosaurus bataar skull is now fighting to keep it after it was seized
• In Concord, New Hampshire, police are looking for a man who stole what’s called the “Donation Dinosaur” from a children’s hospital
• The Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff is having an event on August 31 called Highlands Center for Trips and Tours: Dinosaurs in Arizona

The dinosaur of the day: Paralititan

• Titanosaur that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Egypt, in the Bahariya Formation
• Name means “tidal giant”
• Type species is Paralititan stromeri, and the full name means “Stromer’s tidal giant”
• Name honors Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach, the German paleontologist who found dinosaurs in the Bahariya Oasis in Egypt in the early 1900s
• Named by Joshua Smith, Matthew Lamanna, Kenneth Lacovara, Peter Dodson, Jennifer Smith, Jason Poole, Robert Gigengack, Yousri Attia in 2001
• Paralititan was the first tetrapod reported from the area since 1935
• Found only partial post cranial remains (not the skull). This included vertebrae, pectoral girdle, and forelimb elements
• The specimen found was probably scavenged
• Paralititan may have been prey for Bahriasaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and possibly Spinosaurus (but only if they hunted in groups. Also, Spinosaurus may not have been able to hunt on land)
• The skeleton found was preserved in tidal flat deposits with fossilized mangroves (a tidal ecosystem, and tropical)
• One of the largest dinosaurs (up there with Dreadnoughtus, Turiasaurus, Argentinosaurus)
• One science journalist said in 2001 it “appears to have been the second largest known creature to ever walk on Earth.”
• It has a 5.5 ft (1.7 m) long humerus
• Not much is known about Paralititan, but it’s thought to have weighed about 59 tons or 65 short tons, and 85 ft (26 m) long
• May have had osteoderms, used for defense
• The Bahariya Formation was sometimes under water for long periods when global sea levels rose, then reappeared when sea levels dropped
• Paralititan helps show that Africa and South America may have been part of the same land mass in the Late Cretaceous. Groups of animals have been found common to South America and Madagascar from the time, but not so much in Africa, possibly because there has not been much research done there
• Also lived around the same time and place as Aegyptosaurus, another sauropod

Fun Fact:

We’re actually pretty confident in our estimates of dinosaur eyes despite no eyes fossilizing
Sclerotic rings fossilize. Sclerotic rings are a series of bones that make a ring around the iris in the front of the eye. Lots of vertebrates have them including pterosaurs, ichthyosaurs, & dinosaurs, but not mammals or crocodiles. Often see them mounted with dinosaur fossils where the eye would be. They often don’t preserve since they are small and fragile, and individually are pretty easy to miss.

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