Episode 430: Whiskers or eyelashes on dinosaurs?

Episode 430: Whiskers or eyelashes on dinosaurs? Plus a dinosaur connection problem with Pokemon

Information:

• 256 new titanosaur eggs have been found in India supply
• A brand new sort of egg in Japan in all probability got here from a small troodontid theropod supply

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The dinosaur of the day: Lophostropheus

• Coelophysoid theropod that lived between the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic, round 205 to 196 million years in the past, in what’s now Normandy, France (Moon-Airel Formation)
• Appeared form of like Dilophosaurus, however smaller
• Walked on two legs, had lengthy arms, a protracted tail, and a pair crests on the highest of its head
• Small to medium in measurement
• Estimated it might develop as much as 9.8 ft (3 m) lengthy and weigh as much as 220 lb (100 kg)
• Although some scientists, equivalent to Molina-Pérez and Larramendi, have estimated as much as 17 ft (5.2 m) lengthy and weighing 300 lb (136 kg)
• Could have survived the Triassic-Jurassic extinction
• Sort species is Lophostropheus airelensis
• Genus identify means “crest vertebrae”
• Genus identify refers back to the low crests on the highest and backside (dorsal and ventral) neck vertebrae
• Species identify refers back to the Airel Quarry the place the fossils have been discovered
• Initially considered Halticosaurus, after which Liliensternus, earlier than being named Lophostropheus
• Halticosaurus is a doubtful theropod that lived within the Triassic, and was named in 1908
• Liliensternus was a basal neotheropod that lived within the Triassic in what’s now Germany, and named in 1984
• Fossils first described in 1966 by Claude Larsonneur and Albert-Félix de Lapparent, as Halticosaurus
• Described a partial skeleton that was present in 1959, which included a tooth, a variety of vertebrae, together with 5 neck vertebrae, and components of the pelvis
• From the 1966 paper by Claude Larsonneur and Albert F. De Lapparent: “One tooth, thirty-five vertebrae, a number of bone fragments and coprolites have been found within the blackish and sandy-clayey beds of the Airel quarry”
• Tooth discovered was 2 cm, barely recurved and flattened, with serrated edges
• Authors stated “this trenchant tooth “on the similar time is a knife, sabre and noticed” in keeping with Buckland’s comment”
• Acknowledged they may not classify the dinosaur primarily based on only one tooth, however stated the tooth pointed them to the dinosaur being a theropod and the vertebrae made it look like it was Halticosaurus
• Seven of the vertebrae are from the neck, “exceptional for his or her elongation”, which the authors stated “isn’t so frequent in dinosaurs”
• Additionally discovered three coprolites with fish enamel and scales, which can have belonged to the Halticosaurus/Lophostropheus
• In addition they stated that within the quarry, “mollusc shells type true marbles in locations”
• In 1993 Gilles Cuny and Peter Galton reclassified the specimen as Liliensternus airelensis
• However later, extra variations have been discovered, equivalent to having an additional pair of cavities within the neck vertebrae, and splitting the dinosaur to a brand new genus as Lophostropheus made sense
• In 2000, Oliver Rauhut and Axel Hungerbühler printed a assessment of European Triassic theropods, and urged Liliensternus airelensis “would possibly signify a definite genus, however extra materials is required to verify this”
• Discovered main variations within the neck vertebrae, equivalent to the additional cavities, however stated whether or not or not that’s sufficient to benefit a brand new genus relied on discovering extra fossils for comparability
• In 2004 Matthew Carrano and S. D. Sampson printed a assessment of coelophysoids from the Decrease Jurassic of Europe, and located Liliensternus/Lophostropheus to be a coelophysoid
• Named Lophostropheus in 2007 by Martin Ezcurra and Gilles Cuny
• Ezcurra and Cuny in 2007 discovered that Liliensternus airelensis had sufficient distinctive options to be renamed Lophostropheus, together with “fixed size of caudal vertebrae alongside the tail”, and located that options Lophostropheus had in frequent with Liliensternus liliensterni have been “extra broadly distributed amongst coelophysoids and basal dinosaurs than it was thought” (that means these options weren’t sufficient to maintain them grouped collectively)
• Additionally discovered Lophostropheus to be extra intently associated to Coelophysidae than Liliensternus liliensterni
• Not too many different animals discovered within the Airel quarry, however discovered vegetation and fish

Enjoyable Reality:

Some dinosaurs might have had whiskers.

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