Episode 250 is all in regards to the Bone wars. Together with our dinosaur of the day, Hesperornis, the penguin-like dinosaur with tooth and unusual lobed ft.
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Assets for Sabrina Ricci’s Hardcore Bonewars:
- The Bonehunter’s Revenge by David Rains Wallace supply
- The Dinosaur Hunters by Deborah Cadbury supply
- The Gilded Dinosaur by Mark Jaffe supply
- The Lifetime of a Fossil Hunter by Charles Sternberg supply
- The Bone Hunters by Url Lanham supply
- Bone Sharps, Cowboys & Thunder Lizards by Jim Ottaviani supply
- The Bone Wars are notorious. Between the 1870s to the Nineties, two paleontologists, Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, had a rivalry that finally ruined them but in addition made dinosaurs mainstream. supply
- These two hunted for fossils within the Wild West of the US, with the assistance of the brand new railroads and the burgeoning scientific neighborhood in America. Additionally they needed to take care of politics, tensions between the Sioux and different tribes, and naturally one another. supply
- Earlier than the Bone Wars, dinosaurs weren’t that fashionable. Solely 9 species of dinosaurs had been named, and largely remoted tooth and skeletal fragments had been discovered. However after Marsh and Cope, and their rush to call new species, even going as far as to bribe, steal, and destroy bones to stop one another from “profitable,” (there are rumors they spied on one another and one rumor that Marsh stole a railway automotive of bones, although there’s no proof for that one), they named 144 species (solely 32 are nonetheless thought of legitimate). supply
- Marsh and Cope are sometimes depicted in numerous methods. Marsh was a loner, very suspicious of individuals, and labored slowly and methodically. He was bald with a big beard. Cope was passionate and eccentric, fast to explain fossils, and favored girls however was additionally dedicated to his household. Cope had a full head of hair and a mustache. However each of them had cash and had been very pushed. Marsh bought cash from his Uncle George Peabody, who owned a big mercantile firm, and was a philanthropist and bachelor, with an curiosity in schooling. Cope bought cash from his father, although he had an allowance for many of his life, so is typically depicted because the “poor one” within the Bone Wars. supply
- There was yet another paleontologist who was a part of the Bone Wars, and he’s usually not talked about: Joseph Leidy. Leidy was the primary vertebrate paleontologist within the U.S., and older than each Marsh and Cope. He’d discovered proof of horses, lions, rhinos, and different giant mammals within the West, and in 1856 he found dinosaurs in America. He formally described Hadrosaurus foulkii in 1858. supply
- Nonetheless, not like Marsh and Cope, Leidy didn’t have cash to pursue fossil looking, and he didn’t like getting entangled within the rivalry. Ultimately he stop paleontology and folks form of forgot about him. (Cope realized rather a lot from Leidy, however nonetheless referred to as him “Poor Outdated Leidy.”) supply
- Marsh and Cope’s rivalry ruined them each, however was additionally nice for paleontology supply
- Earlier than the Bone Wars, there have been solely 9 named species of dinosaurs supply
- Cope and Marsh discovered greater than 25,000 new fossils and named 144 new dinosaurs (Cope named 64, Marsh named 80), 9 of Cope’s are nonetheless legitimate, 23 of Marsh’s are legitimate supply
- Not all of them are nonetheless legitimate, however they nonetheless made helpful contributions (and Marsh additionally argued that birds descended from dinosaurs) supply
- Cope printed quick and described 1,115 of the three,200 species of vertebrate fossils identified in North America in 1900 supply
The dinosaur of the day: Hesperornis
- Mesozoic avialan that lived within the Late Cretaceous in what’s now Kansas, US in addition to Canada and Russia
- Penguin-like
- Mainly a big chicken
- About 5.9 ft (1.8 m) lengthy
- Didn’t have wings
- Had sturdy hind limbs, used to swim
- Toes had been lobed, not webbed (form of flattened, good for swimming)
- Didn’t fly, however nice at diving and swimming
- Ft most likely got here out to its sides close to the tail, which suggests their legs couldn’t go below the physique to face, they usually most likely pushed themselves on their bellies on land, like seals
- Most likely had been good at foot-propelling to dive, however not nice strolling on land
- Most likely solely on land for breeding and laying eggs
- Hesperornis is much like Gavia immer (the frequent loon, an extant animal) and possibly moved equally on land and in water
- Had a flattened tail, which can have helped it change path and go deeper or again in the direction of the floor when below water
- Had an extended neck
- Had tooth and a beak
- Beak was good for catching fish
- Most likely used the beak to carry on to prey
- Tooth had been in your entire decrease jaw and the again of the higher jaw
- Their palate (roof of the mouth) had small pits that might lock the decrease tooth into place when the jaws had been closed
- In 1952, Joseph Gregory discovered that Hesperornis tooth weren’t in sockets like dinosaurs, however had a longitudinal groove that ran down the beak, much like mosasaurs
- Similarities in mosasaur decrease jaws might present Hesperornis may swallow giant, slippery prey
- Most likely ate fish
- Lived in subtropical to tropical waters, in a marine habitat. Nonetheless, among the youthful species might have lived in freshwater deposits, so they could have moved, at the least to some extent, away from salt water
- In 2016, David Burnham, Bruce Rothschild, and others studied a leg bone that was present in South Dakota the Sixties and located that the Hesperornis bone had chew marks from a plesiosaur (they in contrast tooth marks of a juvenile plesiosaur and it matched the chew marks to inside a mm). There have been indicators of an infection (primarily based on the roughness of the bone), so Hesperornis most likely survived the assault
- Burnham and Rothschild discovered that the plesiosaur got here from the facet of Hesperornis, primarily based on the orientation of the chew, and likewise discovered it most likely match the entire leg in its mouth
- Reveals plesiosaurs might have been opportunistic predators, as a substitute of all the time going after small prey
- Hesperornis fossils have been discovered from Arkansas to the Arctic, which is round the place the Western Inside Seaway was. Meaning Hesperornis might have lived in cool and heat temperatures within the Arctic, or it could have migrated
- In 2014, Laura Wilson and Karen Chin appeared on the inside bone construction of Hesperornis fossils and of recent day penguins (together with gentoo penguins, which don’t migrate for winter, and Adélie and chinstrap penguins which do migrate)
- They appeared for strains of arrested progress (LAGs) that might have slowed or stopped to answer irritating occasions corresponding to Arctic winters or migrations
- They didn’t discover any LAGs in Hesperornis, however noticed that Hesperornis grew to grownup sized rapidly
- Trendy penguins didn’t have any indicators of Arctic winters or migration stress both
- The penguins develop in a few yr, in order that’s why there aren’t any LAGs (they develop too quick)
- With Hesperornis, there are a number of attainable causes for no LAGs: they had been grownup sized rapidly so the stresses related to migrating or overwintering didn’t seem in ther bone microstructure, their bones will not be simply molded and due to this fact these patterns weren’t recorded, or the Arctic local weather weren’t that unhealthy (although it may get under freezing, it was hotter than it’s immediately)
- The gentoo penguins develop even sooner than the opposite penguins and Hesperornis, probably as a result of they should get to adult-sized earlier than the winter comes (since they don’t migrate)
- Wilson and Chin mentioned penguins must be studied extra, which can assist reply extra questions on Hesperornis
- Sort species is Hesperornis regalis
- Identify means “regal western chicken”
- Found by O.C. Marsh in 1871, throughout his second expedition out west in Kansas with 10 college students. He thought it was a diving species (didn’t discover a head)
- In 1872 Marsh went again to Kansas with 4 college students. Considered one of them, Thomas Russell discovered an almost full skeleton, with a part of the top (with tooth)
- This and Benjamin Mudge’s discovery of Ichthyornis led to Marsh writing in an 1873 paper, “the lucky discovery of those attention-grabbing fossils does a lot to interrupt down the outdated distinction between birds and reptiles”
- Hesperornis was a part of the pre-Bone Wars. Some Hesperornis fossils had been by accident despatched to Cope, and Marsh accused Cope of stealing them
- Dozens of Hesperornis regalis specimens have been discovered
- Marsh printed an illustrated monograph of Hesperornis in 1897, primarily based on many specimens
- 9 species
- A number of the species are solely identified from a single bone or a number of bones, however they’re thought of completely different species as a result of they had been discovered in numerous strate or completely different places
- Marsh named Hesperornis crassipes in 1876 (initially named it Lestornis crassipes, primarily based on an incomplete skelton with tooth and components of the cranium). Hesperornis crassipes was bigger than Hesperornis regalis, had 5 ribs (Hesperornis regalis had 4), and had barely completely different trying bones within the breastbone and decrease leg
- Marsh named one other species Hesperornis gracilis
- One other species, Hesperornis altus, was present in Montana within the Judith River Formation (discovered a partial decrease leg). Marsh initially labeled it as Coniornis as a result of he thought Hesperornis solely lived in Kansas. However others disagreed, and now seek advice from it as Hesperornis altus
- In 1915 Shufeldt named one other species, primarily based on one dorsal vertebra and it being smaller than Hesperornis altus
- Nessov and Yarkov discovered one other Hesperornis in Russia close to Volgograd in 1993 (extra specimens have been referred to it). It’s named Hersperornis rossicus and it’s a special dimension
- Martin and Lim named 4 extra new species in 2002 primarily based on fossils that had not but been studied. Contains Hesperornis mengeli and Hesperornis macdonaldi (small ones), Hesperornis bairdi and Hesperornis chowi. These are from South Dakota and Alberta, Canada
- Can see Hesperornis in an exhibition devoted to Marsh coming to the Yale Science Constructing, to honor him as an early, essential Yale scientist
- Can see Hesperornis in ARK: Survival Advanced
Enjoyable Reality:
Cope additionally named Dimetrodon, although Dimetrodon will not be a dinosaur.