The Big Dinosaur Podcast

In our 159th episode, we got to chat with Dr. Jordan Mallon, a dinosaur specialist at the Canadian Museum of Nature. His research focuses on dinosaur ecology, as well as ceratopsians and their lifestyles, growth, and evolution. And at SVP, he had a poster about the riddle of upside down ankylosaurs. You can follow him on Twitter @Jordan_Mallon.

Episode 159 is also about Lufengosaurus, a massospondylid that lived in the Jurassic in what is now China.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

• The Jurrasic World: Fallen Kingdom trailer was released
• The Haarlem Archaeopteryx has been re-described as its own genus—Ostromia crassipes
• The holidays are upon us, here are some of the best dinosaur gifts we found
  • Betsey Johnson Betseysaurusrex Purse
  • Stranger things Brontosaurus shirts
  • Stegosaurus, Diplodocus, and Triceratops Origami dinosaur accent lights
    • A similar Diplodocus egg cup is also available
  • Go Extinct! board game
  • Bone Wars card game
  • Jurassic World blu-ray + DVD + digital copy is down to $12 on Amazon
  • Jurassic World soundtrack is available as an mp3, CD, or 180 gram Vinyl
  • “Dinosauria” poster
  • The Sauropod Dinosaurs hard cover book
  • Why Dinosaurs Matter TED book
  • Oliadesign dinosaur minifigures (Lego knockoffs from last year but still a great value)
  • Any dinosaur sculpture you can imagine from TRX Dinosaurs (they are a sponsor, but would make the list regardless)

The dinosaur of the day: Lufengosaurus

• • Massospondylid that lived in the Jurassic in what is now China (at Shawan, near Lufeng, in Yunnan province)
  • Name means “Lufeng lizard”
  • Bien Meinian, a geologist, found fossils in the late 1930s
  • Paleontologist Yang Zhongjian (C.C. Young, known as the “Father of Chinese Vertebrate Palaeontology”) helped him in 1938
  • Yang named Lufengosaurus huenei in 1941
  • Genera name refers to Lufeng, and the species name is in honor of Yang’s old tutor, Friedrich von Huene
  • Yang’s description was hindered because of WWII, and not having access to all papers and not being able to fully compare with related dinosaurs
  • Yang named a second species in 1940/41 and described it in 1947: Lufengosaurus magnus (which means “the large one”)
  • Some have considered Lufengosaurus magnus to be a junior synonym of Lufengosaurus huenei
  • Generally considered to have two valid species: Lufengosaurus huenei and Lufengosaurus magnus
  • Yang also named Gyposaurus sinensis in 1940, but in 1976 Peter Galton suggested it was identical to Lufengosaurus. The type species, Gyposaurus capensis was already considered by many to be a synonym of Massospondylus. Then in 2004 Galton and Upchurch suggested Gyposaurus sinensis was its own species
  • Michael Cooper suggested in 1981 that Lufengosaurus and Yunnanosaurus were species of Massospondyls, but in 2005 Paul Barrett and others analyzed the skull of Lufengosaurus huenei and found it was its own genus
    Zhao Xijin named another species in Lufengosaurus changduensis, based on fossils found in Tibet. But it’s not described and is a nomen nudum
  • Tawasaurus is a synonym of Lufengosaurus
  • About 30 specimens have been found
  • Lufengosaurus magnus was up to one third longer than Lufengosaurus huenei
  • Small, early sauropodomorph, about 20 ft or 6 m long (Gregory Paul estimated Lufengosaurus magnus to be 30 ft or 9 m long and weigh 1.9 short tons)
  • Had a long neck and short forelimbs, and was probably bipedal
  • Had sharp claws, and a large thumb claw
  • Claws could have been for defense or for getting food from trees
  • Skull is about 10 in (25 cm) long
  • Had a deep, broad snout, with bony bumps behind large nostrils and on the cheeks
  • Had a bony ridge on its upper jaw
  • Probably had large cheeks
  • Had closely spaced, serrated teeth
  • Probably herbivorous, may have been omnivorous
  • Eggshells and Lufengosaurus embryos were found in a bone bed in Yunnan in 2013. Bone bed was probably a collected of nests destroyed by flooding. 200 bones were found
  • In December 2015, two Lufengosaurus skeletons (one of each species) was found while workers in China were building a road. There may be a museum built over the site to preserve the fossils
  • Lufengosaurus grew rapidly (may have outgrown potential predators)
  • Lived at the same time and place as Dilophosaurus
  • Lufengosaurus was the first complete dinosaur skeleton mounted in China, in 1958; there was a commemorative postage stamp made
  • Can see Lufengosaurus in the Paleozoological Museum of China

Fun Fact:

Sauropods may not have been as dumb as we often assume. According to Mark Hallett and Mathew J. Wedel in The Sauropod Dinosaurs “Brains actually grow only about two-thirds as fast as bodies, and as a result, large animals have low ratios of brain to body weight.”

Sponsor:

This episode is brought to you in part 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