Episode 324 is all about Velafrons, a lambeosaurine hadrosaurid from Mexico with a crest just like Corythosaurus.
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On this episode, we talk about:
Information:
- A brand new mamenchisaurid species, Omeisaurus puxiani, was described from China with a virtually 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 lease a full measurement skeletal duplicate 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 known as “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, type of seems like Parasaurolophus, however extra like Corythosaurus, and as a substitute 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 lots as they develop)
- Crest not performed 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 way of from the snout, into the crest, and right into a maintain above its eyes
- Unclear what the fan-shaped crest was for, however might be to draw mates
- These complicated nasal passages might in all probability make sounds
- Appears to have extra fast development of its nasal than different equally sized dinosaurs
- Like most juvenile hadrosaurs, Velafrons has a proportionately giant cranium, however for its growth stage (juvenile/sub-adult) the cranium continues to be fairly giant
- Sort and solely species is Velafrons coahuilensis
- Genus title means “sailed brow”
- Genus title refers back to the sail-like crest on its head (additionally described as hatchet-like)
- Species title 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 area 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 have been disarticulated
- Took two weeks to dig out the cranium (out of 12 toes of rock and soil)
- Took two years to arrange 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
- Though 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), primarily based 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 known as 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 moist estuary, the place rivers meet the ocean
- A number of fossilized snails and marine clams have been discovered within the space, so it lived close to the shore
- Different dinosaurs that lived across the identical time and place included giant tyrannosaurs, troodontids, ornithomimids, and ceratopsids
- A number of giant storms, which appear to have result in many mass deaths (giant 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 ground 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
- Unique Velafrons specimen is completely housed on the Museo del Desierto in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico
Enjoyable Truth: Protoceratops frills have been in all probability primarily for socio-sexual show and never for fight.
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