Episode 433: Tolkien’s curiosity in dinosaurs and the way it formed his writing

Episode 433: Tolkien’s curiosity in dinosaurs and the way it formed his writing. Professor John Holmes—who just lately re-enacted Tolkien’s 1938 dinosaur presentation in full—joins us to share how Tolkien used his information of dinosaurs whereas writing The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit.

Information:

• A brand new research exhibits that dinosaurs weren’t declining earlier than the asteroid influence, however a shift during which herbivores had been most vital of their ecosystems might have made dinosaurs extra weak to extinction supply
• Scientists discovered that local weather might have affected the early evolution of dinosaurs together with how and the place they lived supply

Interview:

John Holmes, Professor of Victorian Literature and Tradition on the College of Birmingham. He’s an skilled on the Gothic Revival and the Pre-Raphaelite motion. He just lately recreated Tolkien’s 1938 Christmas lecture ‘On Dragons’ which featured a number of dinosaurs from Oxfordshire. He’s additionally on the committee for the Symbiosis Community which seeks to spark collaborations between museums, researchers and artists. Try their YouTube playlist right here.

Sponsors:

The dinosaur of the day: Atlasaurus

• Sauropod that lived within the Center Jurassic in what’s now Azilal Province, Morocco (Guettioua Formation)
• Seemed considerably like Brachiosaurus, with an upright neck
• Carefully associated to Brachiosaurus, with similarities within the vertebral column and limbs
• However completely different from Brachiosaurus, with a proportionately bigger cranium, a shorter neck, longer tail, and longer limbs
• About 15 million years older than Brachiosaurus
• Authors that named Atlasaurus described it as a reasonably giant, grownup sauropod with unusually lengthy forelimbs and reasonably lengthy hindlimbs
• Cranium is giant, neck is brief, tail is lengthy, and the limbs are very lengthy
• Discovered at the least 13 neck vertebrae
• Neck was about 12.7 ft (3.86 m) lengthy
• Estimated to be about 49 ft (15 m) lengthy and weigh 22.5 metric tonnes
• Had spoon-shaped tooth
• Kind species is Atlasaurus imelakei
• Fossils present in 1981, a virtually full skeleton with a cranium
• Described in 1999 by Monbaron, Russell, and Taquet
• Genus title means “Atlas lizard”
• Genus title refers back to the Atlas Mountains, the place the fossils had been discovered, in addition to its measurement. Atlas Mountains named after the Titan Atlas, who held up the sky
• Species title means “large” in Arabic
• In line with the 1999 paper, “The relative completeness of the skeleton means that the animal was borne away and drowned in a flood, then caught on an oxbow or meander and quickly lined by fluvial sediments combined with vegetation”, which partially protected it (although theropod tooth had been discovered close by and related to the skeleton)
• A second specimen with a virtually full tail was present in Morocco within the Eighties, that took 300 hours to wash and put together
• Second specimen ended up in Mexico and was on show within the foyer of BBVA Bancomer tower in Mexico Metropolis
• Then in 2018 it was auctioned off to an nameless businessman, to assist pay to rebuild a number of the 5,000 colleges that had been broken within the 2017 Puebla earthquakes, which killed 480 individuals and triggered billions of {dollars} in injury
• Tail was about 13 ft (4 m) lengthy and weighed 396 lb (180 kg), and was about 70% full
• Tail was to be auctioned at a reserve worth of about $95,805 USD, and if it bought for extra, something over the reserve worth was to go to the colleges
• Ended up promoting for about $96,000 to $97,000 USD (although some websites stated the ultimate sale worth was unknown)
• A minimum of one article advised about $21,500 USD ended up being donated
• After the public sale, authorities in Morocco opened an inquiry about how the tail ended up in Mexico (if it was legally exported or not)
• The Head of Morocco’s cultural heritage division Abdellah Alaoui stated they might repatriate the fossil
• First they contacted the public sale home to verify the vendor was legally allowed to promote the fossil
• Stated it that was the case they might purchase the fossil again from the brand new proprietor and convey it again to Morocco
• If that wasn’t the case, the Moroccan embassy in Mexico Metropolis would use a particular process to cancel the sale and repatriate the fossil
• In 2017, Morocco had efficiently eliminated a plesiosaur that got here from Morocco from an public sale in Paris
• Seems the tail was bought to an unspecified company
• The public sale home, Morton, stated the tail was acquired from the Petra Gallery, which stated the fossil was legally bought within the U.S.
• Couldn’t discover an replace on what finally occurred
• Apparently, it’s unlawful to promote fossils in Mexico that had been present in Mexico (however can promote fossils present in different nations)
• Featured within the 2002 documentary printed by Discovery Channel, Monitoring Africa’s Dinosaurs

Enjoyable Truth:

There aren’t any “dwelling fossil” species which have survived for the reason that Mesozoic.

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