The Big Dinosaur Podcast

Episode 142 is all about Alxasaurus, one of the earliest known dinosaurs in the superfamily Therizinosauroidea.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• “The nodosaur” at the Royal Tyrrell Museum has been given the official name Borealopelta or “northern shield”
• “The titanosaur” at the American Museum of Natural History has also been given a name Patagotitan or “southern giant”
• An extremely thick dinosaur eggshell (up to 4.9mm or 0.2 inches thick) was found in Spain
• A set of dinosaur eggs close to the size of chicken eggs was also described from Montana
• Saurian has been officially released in Early Access on Steam
• Robot Chicken released a series of dinosaur clips from their show
• The  dinosaur tracks at Government Canyon in San Antonio, Texas have reopened to the public
• A man who was on a hike to plan a bike trail found dinosaur bones instead (likely from a hadrosaur)
• A nearly complete Chasmosaurus skull is being moved from the Alberta badlands to the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa
• The Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation and the Peace Region Paleontology Research Centre received new funding, which will likely be used to expand their collection of digital dinosaur models
• Three raptor replicas at Canberra’s National Dinosaur Museum in Australia were vandalized
• World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) posted pictures of stars wrestling dinosaurs to celebrate “Dinosaur Day”
• Marvel Comics commemorated Devil Dinosaur in honor of the founder’s birthday
• The 23rd issue of Marvel’s comic “The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl” includes lots of dinosaurs
• The creators of “Dear Dinosaur: With Real Letters to Read!” are hosting events across the U.S. where kids can write notes to the T.rex in the book.
• A new series, called “What’s so special about dinosaurs?” has released 9 books so far with more coming out next year
• Trypticon, the T. rex Decepticon has been released by Hasbro
• Coach’s $150 dinosaur Apple Watch strap, now comes in fall colors
• Daily Dot published an article about a handy silica gel sauropod phone holder

The dinosaur of the day: Alxasaurus

• Therizinosauroid alxasaurid theropod that lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Inner Mongolia
• One of the earliest known dinosaurs in the superfamily Therizinosauroidea
• Name means “Alxa Desert lizard”
• Named after the Alxa Desert of Inner Mongolia, which is also known as the “Alashan” desert
• Found on a joint Canadian-Chinese expedition in 1988
• Described and named by Dale Russell and Dong Zhiming in 1994
• Type species (and only species) is Alxasaurus elesitaiensis
• Species name is for Elesitai, a village in the region, near where Alxasaurus was discovered
• Five specimens were found (found lower jaw, some teeth, limb bones, ribs, vertebrae, and tail vertebrae); all form a nearly complete skeleton, minus the skull
• Shows transition period between general theropods and more advanced therizinosaurids
• Before Alxasaurus, scientists thought therizinosaurs were related to sauropods
• Looks similar to other therizinosaurs, but also similar to other types of theropods (which shows that therizinosaurs were weird theropods). One example of this is the semilunate carpal bone of the wrist (which allows wrists to be more flexible), which is also found in maniraptorans such as oviraptorosaurs, dromaeosaurs, and troodontids
• Had a long neck, short tail, and long hand claws, like later therizinosauroids
• Bipedal
• Had no teeth, but a mouth that would have acted like a beak
• Because of this, unclear if it was an herbivore (though most likely it was)
• Had an agile, lightweight build, like a carnivore
• Had a large gut, which may have helped it digest plants
• Had large claws, that would have helped it reach tall branches for leaves
• If it did eat meat, it would have had to scavenge
• Shows that herbivores can evolve from carnivores
• Largest known Alxasaurus was over 12 ft (3.8 m) long. Gregory Paul estimated it to be 13 ft (4 m) long and weight 400 kg
• Other therizinosaurs had feathers (like Beipiaosaurus), so Alxasaurus may have also had feathers

Fun Fact:

Carnotaurus had significantly shorter arms than T. rex

Carnotaurus didn’t have wrists, its metacarpals connected directly to its tiny forearms. 2 of its metacarpals had no finger bones after them so it effectively also only had 2 fingers, which were likely very stiff.

It’s shoulder blade was about twice as long as its entire forelimb (from shoulder to finger tip)

These tiny arms are similar to a kiwi bird which has forelimbs so short they are hidden under their feathers.

Time to stop making fun of T. rex…

 

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