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Episode 262: Sauropods and pterosaurs within the Outback

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    Episode 262 is all about Magyarosaurus, an armored dwarf sauropod from a Cretaceous European island.

    We additionally interview Philip Mannion, Steve Poropat, and Adele Pentland. Paleontologists on the Australian Age of Dinosaurs museum in Winton, Queensland. We mentioned the brand new sauropods actually arising out of the bottom within the Outback in addition to a model new pterosaur, Ferrodraco.

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    On this episode, we focus on:

    Information:

    • A brand new small ceratopsian was named Ferrisaurus from northern British Columbia, Canada supply
      • Victoria Arbour summarized her Ferrisaurus discovery on her weblog supply
    • A brand new examine exhibits simply how briskly dinosaurs may substitute their enamel supply

    • The Cleveland Museum of Pure Historical past has a brand new exhibit known as Final Dinosaurs supply
    • The Pure Historical past Museum in Los Angeles is having an Antarctic Dinosaurs Household Day supply

    The dinosaur of the day: Magyarosaurus

    • Dwarf sauropod that lived within the Late Cretaceous in what’s now Romania (Sânpetru Formation, when it was discovered it was the Austro-Hungarian Empire)
    • About 19.6 ft (6 m) lengthy
    • Weighed about 1.1 tons

    • Had dermal armor (distinctive form and measurement, which is why fossil eggs discovered might have been Magyarosaurus)
    • No skulls have been discovered
    • Insular dwarf, lived on an island so had restricted meals and probably not any massive predators, so it was smaller than different sauropods (didn’t must develop massive for defense)

    • Kind species (solely species) is Magyarosaurus dacus
    • Initially known as Titanosaurus dacus
    • Friedrich von Huene renamed to Magyarosaurus dacus in 1932

    • He additionally named two extra species: Magyarosaurus hungaricus and Magyarosaurus transsylvanicus
    • Genus identify means “Magyar lizard”
    • The genus identify comes from the phrase “Magyar”, a tribe of people that settled in Hungary within the ninth century

    • Species identify refers back to the Dacians, who had lived there 2000 years earlier than
    • At the least 10 people discovered
    • Franz Baron Nopcsa’s youthful sister Ilona discovered dinosaur fossils on their property in 1895, across the identical time dwarf mammals had been discovered on a Mediterranean island

    • This lead Franz to hypothesize the dinosaurs had been dwarfs
    • Nopsca was the primary to recommend island dwarfism for Magyarosaurus, although some scientists thought the fossils he’d discovered had been juveniles
    • In 2010, Michael J.Benton, Zoltan Csiki, Dan Grigores, Ragna Redelstorff, P. Martin Sander, Koen Stein, David B. Weishampel studied the histology of Magyrosaurus and located the specimens had been adults and the sauropod was an island dwarf

    • The 2010 staff collected 21 samples from 19 totally different sized people and minimize them up to take a look at the microstructure of the bones. They discovered all of the people had been adults, they usually had been between 95 and 99 p.c of their most measurement
    • Magyarosaurus had a excessive metabolism however a gradual development fee
    • The 2010 staff discovered that the island Magyarosaurus lived in was about 80,000 sq. kilometers, and was a part of a lot of islands that’s now central Europe

    • Not all dinosaurs on Hateg island had been dwarfs, nevertheless it’s unclear why Magyarosaurus and some different dinosaurs had been so small
    • No report of any massive predators discovered on the island
    • The staff additionally discovered Magyarosaurus hungaricus was too massive to be a species of Magyarosaurus and was a distinct taxon (however stated a full description was out of scope for his or her examine)

    • Not clear if these bigger bones come from a dinosaur that swam to the island from the mainland, or got here from massive ancestors of Magyarosaurus
    • Fossil eggs present in 2001 had been assigned to Nemegtosauridae and are probably Magyarosaurus dacus or Paludititan, although Magyarosaurus could also be extra seemingly
    • Hateg Basin was a big dinosaur nesting space within the Late Cretaceous, although it’s laborious to determine which species the eggs belonged to, so it’s been related to hadrosaurs and titanosaurs

    • In 2012, Gerald Grellet-Tinner, Vlad Codrea, Annelise Folie, Alessandra Higa, Thierry Smith checked out 11 fossilized egg clutches, and located they belonged to Nemegtosauridae
    • These had been the primary described set of nicely preserved, full titanosaur egg clutches from the realm, which assist make clear copy and insular dwarfism
    • Having 11 egg clutches, as a substitute of 15 like has been present in different nests, might imply a part of the “island impact” is to lower the variety of eggs per clutch, as a substitute of scale back the egg measurement or change the construction of the eggshells

    • One specimen from the clutch had tissue preservation, and the staff discovered dome-shaped options over a thickened space of pores and skin. Based mostly on what we find out about fashionable crocodiles, these dome-shaped options had been discovered to be dermal papillae (the uppermost layer of the dermis)
    • Presence of those domes is congruent with the osteoderms that Magyarosaurus has
    • Magyarosaurus lived in a considerably humid setting, with wet seasons

    • Magyarosaurus carefully associated to Rapetosaurus, Nemegtosaurus, Malawisaurus, and Trigonosaurus
    • Different animals that lived across the identical time and place embrace the small hadrosaurid Telmatosaurus (one other dwarf dinosaur), the dwarf ornithopod Zalmoxes, the small nodosaurid Sturthiosaurus, maniraptorans, pterosaurs and euornithopods, in addition to turtles, dromaeosaurids

    Enjoyable Reality:
    Many dinosaur teams seem to have used their heads as radiators to chill off.

    Sponsors:

    This episode is dropped at you partially by Why Dinosaurs? The function size documentary celebrating dinosaurs and the individuals who love them, created by father and son staff Tony and James Pinto, help them and get perks on Indiegogo.



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