Skip to content

Episode 324: Three new sauropods from world wide

    [ad_1]

    Episode 324 is all about Velafrons, a lambeosaurine hadrosaurid from Mexico with a crest just like Corythosaurus.

    Large due to all our patrons! Your assist means a lot to us and retains us going! When you’re a dinosaur fanatic, be a part of our rising neighborhood on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/iknowdino.

    You possibly can take heed to our free podcast, with all our episodes, on Apple Podcasts at:
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/i-know-dino/id960976813?mt=2

    On this episode, we talk about:

    Information:

    • A brand new mamenchisaurid species, Omeisaurus puxiani, was described from China with an almost full backbone supply

    • A small titanosaur, Garrigatitan meridionalis, was described from Southern France supply
    • A turiasaur, Narindasaurus thevenini, was named from a 100+ yr previous discover in Madagascar supply
    • A 4 yr previous discovered a Triassic dinosaur footprint in Wales supply

    • Some are criticizing the transfer to make Suciasaurus rex the official Washington state dinosaur, however not as a result of it’s an invalid genus supply
    • The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Pure Historical past has a brand new exhibit, Dinosaurs: Land of Hearth and Ice supply
    • You possibly can hire a full measurement skeletal reproduction of the Mukawa-ryu dinosaur (Kamuysaurus) in Hokkaido supply

    • Massachusetts now has an official state dinosaur, Podokesaurus holyokensis supply
    • A brand new dinosaur park builder Dinosaur Park: Primeval Zoo was launched on Android supply
    • Somebody reimagined the trailer for Jurassic Park, and changed all of the dinosaurs with Pee-wee Herman supply

    • Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous features a trace at a brand new (in all probability frozen) dinosaur often called “Specimen E750” supply

    The dinosaur of the day: Velafrons

    • Lambeosaurine hadrosaurid that lived within the Late Cretaceous in what’s now Coahuila, Mexico (Cerro del Pueblo Formation)

    • Cumbersome, in all probability walked on all fours, form of appears like Parasaurolophus, however extra like Corythosaurus, and as an alternative of getting the lengthy tube on its head like Parasaurolophus, had a fan-shaped crest on its head
    • Herbivorous
    • Estimated to be 25 ft (7.6 m), and develop to 30 to 35 ft as an grownup (9 to 10.6 m); solely a juvenile has been discovered to date

    • The dentary (decrease jaw) was lengthy and slender and barely downturned
    • Had a bony crest on its brow
    • Crest in all probability would have modified because it grew (lambeosaurine skulls and crests change loads as they develop)

    • Crest not finished creating
    • Nostril was on prime of its cranium and the snout prolonged backward, up its face, to fill within the hole
    • Had a collection of passages the place air flowed by from the snout, into the crest, and right into a maintain above its eyes

    • Unclear what the fan-shaped crest was for, however may very well be to draw mates
    • These complicated nasal passages might in all probability make sounds
    • Appears to have extra speedy development of its nasal than different equally sized dinosaurs

    • Like most juvenile hadrosaurs, Velafrons has a proportionately massive cranium, however for its improvement stage (juvenile/sub-adult) the cranium remains to be fairly massive
    • Sort and solely species is Velafrons coahuilensis
    • Genus identify means “sailed brow”

    • Genus identify refers back to the sail-like crest on its head (additionally described as hatchet-like)
    • Species identify is in honor of the state of Coahuila, the place the dinosaur was discovered
    • Named in 2007 by Terry Gates and others

    • Fossils first discovered by Martha Carolina Aguillon
    • Excavated between 1992 and 2001, by discipline crews from the “Dinamation Worldwide Society” (many volunteers)
    • Then in 2002 a joint expedition with Utah Museum of Pure Historical past, Royal Tyrrell, and Museo del Desierto labored to excavate the cranium bones

    • Discovered a partial juvenile skeleton and principally full cranium
    • Cranium and skeleton had been disarticulated
    • Took two weeks to dig out the cranium (out of 12 toes of rock and soil)

    • Took two years to organize the cranium, and it was ready by Jerry Golden, a volunteer on the Utah Museum of Pure Historical past
    • Similar to juvenile Corythosaurus and Hypacrosaurus
    • Regardless that a juvenile, discovered distinct sufficient to be its personal genus

    • In 1981 William Morris described ?Lambeosaurus laticaudus (with a query mark in entrance as a result of it was not definitive, since no full crest was discovered), based mostly on a partial cranium present in Baja California, within the El Gallo Formation. Gates and others discovered that Velafrons was nonetheless too totally different from Lambeosaurus laticaudus, now often called Magnapaulia (as of 2012)
    • One of many first dinosaurs named from Mexico
    • When it was named, it was the primary new North American lambeosaurine named in over 70 years

    • On the time Velafrons lived, there was a heat, shallow sea from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, and Velafrons lived on Laramidia, on the southern tip (what’s now Mexico)
    • Lived in a damp estuary, the place rivers meet the ocean
    • Numerous fossilized snails and marine clams had been discovered within the space, so it lived close to the shore

    • Different dinosaurs that lived across the similar time and place included massive tyrannosaurs, troodontids, ornithomimids, and ceratopsids
    • Numerous massive storms, which appear to have result in many mass deaths (massive bonebeds of jumbled hadrosaur and ceratopsian skeletons discovered within the space)
    • There’s a sculpture type of Velafrons, as Ichiro the Dino, 30 ft skeleton constructed for Burning Man by Marianela Fuentes, and after went to Washington D.C., and was on an eleventh flooring roof deck for some time. Had colourful bones impressed by the designs of the Huichol tribe in Mexico

    • Ichiro moved on to the Kids’s Discovery Museum in San Jose, CA final February
    • Authentic Velafrons specimen is completely housed on the Museo del Desierto in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico

    Enjoyable Reality: Protoceratops frills had been in all probability primarily for socio-sexual show and never for fight.

    Sponsors

    This episode is dropped at you by The Nice Programs Plus. Try the course Large Historical past: The Large Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity which covers the historical past of the universe and our place in it. Get a free month of limitless entry at TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/ikd

    This episode is dropped at you by EveryPlate. Attempt EveryPlate for simply $1.99 per meal plus a further 20% off your subsequent 2 packing containers by going to EveryPlate.com and getting into code ikd199



    [ad_2]