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Episode 381: Iguanodon had a foot lengthy thumb spike

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    Episode 381 is all about Efraasia, a Late Triassic sauropodomorph that was initially considered carnivorous.

    We additionally interview Filippo Bertozzo, a postdoc researcher on the Museum of Pure Historical past in Brussels (RBINS). He research a few of our favourite subjects together with: paleopathologies, air sacs, and dinosaur conduct. Comply with him on Instagram in English or Italian. Or on twitch at dicendinosaur.

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    On this episode, we focus on:

    Information:

    • The newest paper on Torosaurus considers it to be a legitimate taxon supply
    • Researchers have made new suggestions to handle decolonizing paleontology supply
    • AI will doubtless quickly assist analyze CT scans and make paleontological analysis extra environment friendly supply

    • The sport Jurassic World Evolution 2 has a brand new set of dinosaurs from Camp Cretaceous supply
    • A global group of volunteers are dashing to archive Ukrainian museum collections and different content material at SUCHO.org supply

    The dinosaur of the day: Efraasia

    • Basal sauropodomorph that lived within the Late Triassic in what’s now Baden-Württemberg, Germany (Burrerschen Quarry)
    • Regarded like different sauropodomorphs, with an extended tail, and claws
    • Medium-sized and evenly constructed

    • Estimated to be about 20 to 23 ft (6 to 7 m) lengthy
    • At first considered small, at round 6.6 to 9.8 ft (2 to three m) lengthy, however that was based mostly on juvenile fossils
    • In 2003, Yates estimated adults have been 21 ft (6.5 m) lengthy

    • Had a small, pointed, triangular cranium
    • Had a considerably lengthy neck, that was skinny
    • Had low neural spines on the tail

    • Had gracile arms and ft
    • Might have been bipedal and quadrupedal
    • Had lengthy fingers and thumbs it may use to understand meals

    • Wrist form might have allowed it to stroll on all fours, though not everybody agrees (some assume the decrease arm couldn’t pronate/rotate in a strategy to put the arms on the bottom, which might imply it may solely stroll on two legs)
    • Second finger was longer than the third finger
    • Herbivorous

    • Initially considered carnivorous
    • Gastroliths present in affiliation with one of many specimens, particularly 14 small clean pebbles von Huene reported in 1932
    • Kind and solely species is Efraasia minor

    • Named after Eberhard Fraas, who discovered the fossils
    • Fossils first present in 1902, when Albert Burrer, a stonemason, was making an attempt to achieve some laborious white sandstone in a quarry close to Pfaffenhofen for constructing (needed to take away about 20 ft or 6 m of softer marl)
    • A lot of fossils have been within the marl and underlying comfortable sandstone

    • When the quarry was closed from 1906 to 1914, Burrer donated the fossils to Eberhard Fraas, a professor on the State Museum of Pure Historical past Stuttgart
    • Fossils first considered a part of three already named dinosaurs: Teratosaurus minor, Sellosaurus fraasi, Paleosaurus diagnosticus
    • Fossils included vertebrae, proper hindlimb, and pubic bone

    • Different fossils have been discovered, together with some in giant slabs, although not absolutely ready
    • Fossils discovered embrace an incomplete cranium, vertebrae, gastralia, ribs, humerus, pubis, femora, tibia, fibula, astragalus, finish of the best pes, and extra
    • Friedrich von Huene first described the fossils in 1907 and 1908 as Teratosaurus minor

    • On the time, Teratosaurus was considered a theropod (now thought of to be a rauisuchian, a bunch of archosaurs extra intently associated to crocodilians than to birds and non-avian dinosaurs
    • Species identify refers to Teratosaurus minor being smaller than Teratosaurus suevicus (the kind species)
    • Von Huene additionally named Sellosaurus fraasi based mostly on a partial skeleton (Sellosaurus is now a synonym of Plateosaurus); talked about in episode 152

    • In 1912, Fraas reported two partial skeletons that he assigned to Thecodontosaurus diagnosticus; nonetheless, his well being wasn’t nice so he didn’t formally describe them and it was a nomen nudum
    • Von Huene used the species identify when he redescribed Fraas’ specimens in 1932, after Fraas died, and known as them Paleosaurus (?) diagnosticus (meant to be a provisional identify)
    • In 1959, Oskar Kuhn stated the identify Paleosaurus was already getting used, for an archosaur named in 1836, and renamed it to Palaeosauriscus

    • Allen Charig first used the identify Palaeosauriscus diagnosticus in 1967, though Cope had named Palaeosauriscus fraserianus in 1878 (plenty of classifications, however newest appears to be it’s a phytosaur archosaur, based mostly on a tooth)
    • In 1973, Peter Galton assigned all of Fraas’ specimens to the brand new genus Efraasia (and named Efraasia)
    • He named it Efraasia diagnostica

    • In 1985, Galton and Bob Bakker prompt Efraasia be a junior synonym to Sellosaurus gracilis
    • In 2003, Adam Yates analyzed fossils from the Late Triassic in what’s now Germany, and located Sellosaurus fossils belonged to both Sellosaurus gracilis, which he assigned to be Plateosaurus gracilis, and the remainder was Teratosaurus minor, Sellosaurus fraasi, and Palaeosaurus diagnosticus
    • Efraasia was named first

    • The species identify was extra sophisticated, since Von Huene had written in 1908 in the identical e-book about Teratosaurus minor and Sellosaurus fraasi
    • Teratosaurus minor appeared on the web page first, so Yates selected minor to be the species identify, and the total identify turned Efraasia minor
    • Yates didn’t think about two different species von Huene had named based mostly on fragmentary fossils: Teratosaurus trossingensis and Thecodontosaurus hermannianus (Galton in 1990 thought of them each to be junior synonyms of Efraasia diagnostica)

    • Galton stated Efraasia was “a perfect ancestor for the newer Anchisaurus”, which had some superior options, like the primary metacarpal have been broader, and the primary ungual was shorter
    • Galton additionally talked about a pathology in one of many skeletons (a virtually full skeleton with an incomplete cranium), the place the best humerus was shorter in comparison with the left. Wrote “as the world of fracture is healed and well-finished, the animal should have lived for fairly some time after the break”
    • In 2017 Mario Bronzati and Oliver Rauhut described the braincase of Efraasia minor

    • CT scanned the braincase
    • Discovered that the braincase anatomy of sauropods is a results of modifications of their evolutionary historical past, although it’s unclear if it’s resulting from “speedy and drastic morphological change” or as a result of there are a small variety of braincases preserved

    Enjoyable Truth:
    The T. rex holotype was moved from AMNH to the Carnegie Museum when the US joined WWII to guard it from potential air raids.

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