Episode 438: What Triassic dinosaurs ate

Episode 438: What Triassic dinosaurs ate. Plus a brand new Torosaurus specimen, a brand new spinosaurid discover that features arms, and we join dinosaurs to Emmy Noether

Information:

• The earliest dinosaurs had shocking diets supply
• Ornithischians developed to eat vegetation in many alternative methods supply
• A brand new Torosaurus specimen has been discovered supply
• Scientists have found a brand new spinosaurid supply
• The Pure Historical past Museum in London lately found an agate crystal in its collections is a titanosaur egg supply
• Crystal Palace Dinosaurs lately received extra funding supply
• Filmmaker Danny Donahue made a brief sci-fi movie known as Hell Creek supply

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The dinosaur of the day: Mymoorapelta

• Nodosaurid ankylosaur that lived within the Late Jurassic in what’s now Colorado and Utah, U.S. (Morrison Formation)
• Nodosaurids don’t have tail golf equipment
• Seems to be just like Nodosaurus, closely armored and coated in scutes, with spikes popping out of its sides,
• Walked on all fours, had an extended tail, low to the bottom, small elongated head
• Estimated to develop as much as 9.8 ft (3 m) lengthy
• Estimated to weigh between about 660 and 1230 lb (about 300 to 560 kg)
• Smallest recognized four-legged dinosaur from the Morrison Formation and one of many smallest ankylosaurs
• Cranium hasn’t been described intimately however seems just like Gargoyleosaurus, which can be from the Morrison Formation
• Gargoyleosaurus was named in 1988
• Had a slender snout, and triangular cranium
• Had two giant horns on the forehead and two horns on the cheek
• Had small, leaf-shaped tooth
• Had 13 ribs and 4 sacral ribs (rib-like buildings across the sacrum, which is related to the pelvis)
• Had brief limbs
• “The proportions of the ulna and ilium in Mymoorapelta counsel it had a stance harking back to that noticed in stegosaurs with its excessive slender hips and brief highly effective forelimbs”, based on Kirkland and Carpenter, who named the dinosaur
• Had a considerably versatile tail (extra versatile than ankylosaurid tails that had been strongly fused)
• Tail vertebrae had been longer than they had been extensive
• Had spikes on the tail
• Tail could have been for protection or for preventing different nodosaurids
• Had giant spiky osteoderms on its sides and again
• 5 armor sorts discovered: lengthy spines with a hole base and an extended groove up the facet; skinny, triangular plates with a slender, uneven hole base; small bladelike spines with a rounded, strong base; remoted, flat scutes; and scutes fused right into a single sheet of armor
• Massive backbone most likely was on the base of the neck and pointed outward
• Skinny triangular plates had been most likely connected decrease down the physique and to the tail
• A part of the sacral protect preserved, together with a small piece of armor that has one giant osteoderm surrounded by smaller osteoderms and appears flower-like
• Had keeled osteoderms, or bosses, and elevated knobs as effectively on the sacral protect
• Again and tail was coated in small osteoderms in between bigger plates of armor (primarily based on comparisons to Sauropelta)
• Lived in a semiarid setting with moist and dry seasons, and had floodplains
• Had a excessive relative chew power, primarily based on its jaw joint
• In all probability a low browser and possibly a selective feeder due to its slender snout
• In all probability ate cycads and conifers
• Kind and solely species: Mymoorapelta maysi
• Described by Jim Kirkland and Kenneth Carpenter in 1994
• Genus title means “Mygatt’s protect”
• Named in honor of Vannetta Moore and Pete and Marilyn Mygatt, who discovered the Mygatt-Moore Quarry the place the fossils had been discovered
• Species title is in honor of Chris Mays, president of the Dinamation Worldwide Company and Society, who funded excavating the quarry
• Quarry web site present in March 1981 by Peter Marilyn Mygatt and John D. and Vanetta Moore “whereas on an tour within the excessive desert of western Colorado”, based on Kirkland and Carpenter
• Fossils first present in 1990
• Quarry is “interpreted as an attritional accumulation of ample dinosaur stays at a everlasting water gap,” based on Kirkland and Carpenter
• Could possibly be animals had been killed coming down the water gap to drink, animals died of thirst or/and hunger on the water gap throughout drought, or animals grew to become trapped within the mud alongside the margin of the water gap when searching for water throughout dry durations when the water gap was small
• A number of proof of scavenging and/or subsequent trampling, so any particular explanation for dying for any specific animal is unclear
• Mymoorapelta is the third commonest dinosaur within the Mygatt-Moore Quarry (Allosaurus is the most typical, then Apatosaurus)
• First recognized Late Jurassic ankylosaur from North America, and one of many earliest recognized nodosaurids
• Holotype features a left hip bone (with bitemarks), vertebrae, ribs, limb bones, and many osteoderms
• Fused vertebral column, so holotype is taken into account to be an grownup
• “Though it’s apparent the animal was fed upon, it cannot be decided if the animal was killed by a predator or just scavenged”, based on Kirkland and Carpenter
• Chunk marks discovered on Mymoorapelta could also be from a really giant Allosaurus (unusually giant), or another giant carnivorous dinosaur
• Over 160 bones have been discovered, they usually had been scattered over 27 yards (25 m) of the 1600 sq ft (150 sq m) quarry
• Though disarticulated, “one of the full Jurassic ankylosaurids described up to now” and “the smallest grownup, quadrupedal dinosaur but recognized within the Morrison Formation”, based on Kirkland and Carpenter
• Additionally discovered a small dinosaur egg (lower than 4 in or 10 cm in diameter) with “distinctive ornithischian-style microstructure). Egg was related to the ankylosaur
• As a result of no different ornithischians are recognized from the quarry, and not one of the saurischian dinosaurs (aside from possibly a small theropod) from the realm had been sufficiently small to have laid such a small egg, Kirkland and Carpenter wrote: “we suspect that egg could have been aborted on the dying of the ankylosaur. Though speculative, if the egg belongs to the ankylosaur, it means that the dying of the animal could have been sudden, maybe by the animal being trapped within the mud after which killed or at the least scavenged”
• Kirkland and others referred a partial skeleton to Mymoorapelta in 1998, present in Cactus Park, Colorado (fossil was nonetheless being ready at the moment)
• Partial skeleton included vertebrae, chevrons (from beneath the tail vertebrae), sacrum (a part of the pelvis), and many armor, together with components of the sacral protect that coated the highest of the pelvis
• Extra bones have been discovered on the quarry since, together with an almost full cranium, and practically all components of the physique besides the pubis and femur (a hip bone and leg bone)
• Fossils are on the Dinosaur Journey Museum of Western Colorado in Fruita, Colorado
• One other specimen was discovered close to Hanksville, Utah which incorporates extra osteoderms, ribs, a vertebra, and femur
• One other Mymoorapelta specimen was present in 2014, within the Hanksville-Burpee Quarry, which is a “sauropod-dominated bonebed” based on Katie Tremaine and others
• Eight recognized specimens of Mymoorapelta, and 4 of them present in sauropod localities
• Different dinosaurs that lived across the similar time and place embody Apatosaurus, Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and probably Nanosaurus
• Different animals that lived across the similar time and place embody a number of snails and fish

Enjoyable Reality:

You’ll be able to go to rivers on Earth that dinosaurs as soon as swam in, fished in, and drank from.

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