Episode 217 is all about Nanosaurus, a small herbivorous dinosaur from the Late Jurassic.
We additionally interview Tom Holtz, principal lecturer on the College of Maryland’s Division of Geology and the School Director of the Science and World Change Program. His main focus is theropods, particularly tyrannosaurids. He has additionally written a number of books, together with Dinosaurs: The Most Full Up-to-Date Encyclopedia for Dinosaur Lovers of All Ages and Jurassic World Dinosaur Area Information. Observe him on Twitter or Fb.
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On this episode, we focus on:
Information:
- Our first new dinosaur of 2019 is Adynomosaurus, the “weak shouldered” hadrosaur from Northeast Spain supply
- Bob the 90% full Triceratops from North Dakota is again on sale supply
- In Mongolia, two males have been arrested whereas attempting to promote a dinosaur fossil after posting it on Fb supply
- Dinosaurs Take Flight: The Artwork of Archaeopteryx opened at Oregon’s Museum of Pure and Cultural Historical past supply
- The American Museum of Pure Historical past in New York has a brand new exhibit, T. rex: The Final Predator opening on March 11 supply
- The Pure Historical past Museum in London and the Science Museum subsequent door could have associated reveals opening in 2020 that includes dinosaurs supply
- The app MyFossil lets you add fossil photographs from the sector to match and focus on findings and strategies supply
- Tri-C, a group school in Cleveland, Ohio, has a brand new Triceratops mascot supply
- The Atlantic has a enjoyable gallery of “dinosaur statues of questionable accuracy” supply
The dinosaur of the day: Nanosaurus
- Ornithischian that lived within the Late Jurassic in what’s now Colorado (additionally Wyoming)
- Usually illustrated as a “tiny dinosaur”
- Not a lot is understood about it (principally based mostly on fossils that have been later referred to Othnielosaurus)
- Might have been 3-6.5 ft (1-2 m) lengthy, although it’s unsure
- Herbivorous
- Described in 1877 by Othniel Charles Marsh
- Marsh named three species: Nanosaurus agilis, Nanosaurus victor, (named collectively) Nanosaurus rex (named later in the identical yr, 1877)
- Marsh additionally named the household Nanosauridae
- Later Nanosaurus turned regarded as a hypsilophodontid, as a result of it was small and considerably seemed like Hypsilophodon (as a substitute of Nanosauridae)
- Kind species is Nanosaurus agilis
- Title means “small or dwarf lizard”
- Supposedly Marsh favored finding out small dinosaurs from the Morrison Formation as a result of Cope and his crew had bother discovering them
- Oramel Lucas, a faculty intendant, discovered Nanosaurus agilis (ilium, thigh bones, shin bones, fibula, dentary impressions)
- Marsh’s description of Nanosaurus agilis was very quick (no illustrations and even info on the locality the place it was discovered, aside from “Mesozoic deposits of the Rocky Mountains”), however he did say it was “essentially the most diminutive dinosaur but found”
- Doable that Marsh didn’t describe the locality of Nanosaurus agilis as a result of Oramel Lucas labored for Edward Drinker Cope. Supposedly Marsh’s assistant Benjamin Mudge visited Lucas, who wasn’t too proud of Cope. Mudge satisfied Lucas that his association with Cope was just for giant fossils, and that he might promote his small fossils to anybody (so he offered Nanosaurus agilis)
- Marsh illustrated a number of the Nanosaurus agilis fossils in 1894ish, and gave extra descriptions, saying it was very bird-like and “about half as giant as a home fowl”
- Nanosaurus victor was regarded as bigger than Nanosaurus agilis (fox sized versus cat sized)
- Nanosaurus rex was a bit of larger than Nanosaurus agilis
- Marsh later renamed Nanosaurus victor as Hallopus victor (1881)
- In 1970 Alick Walker discovered that Hallopus victor was truly small bipedal crocodylomorph
- Nanosaurus rex was identified from an entire thigh bone
- In 1973, Peter Galton and Jim Jensen described a partial skeleton as Nanosaurus rex (no head, palms, or tail)
- In 1978, Peter Galton discovered that the rock with Nanosaurus agilis fossils had two proper femora, which confirmed two animals have been there. He discovered the smaller femur was Nanosaurus rex and the bigger one Nanosaurus agilis
- Galton named a brand new household Fabrosauridae to incorporate Nanosaurus agilis (primitive ornithischians)
- Galton made Nanosaurus rex the kind species of the hypsilophodontid genus, Othnielia, so Nanosaurus rex turned Othnielia rex (named in honor of Marsh)
- Not everybody agreed with Fabrosauridae current
- In 2007 Galton recommended Nanosaurus agilis be probably a basal ornithopod as a substitute
- To sum up: solely Nanosaurus agilis is a legitimate species (Nanosaurus rex is now Othnielia rex and Nanosaurus victor is now Hallopus victor)
Enjoyable Reality:
A lot of Europe was underneath water all through the Mesozoic which suggests we don’t have many dinosaur fossils.
Nevertheless, Scandinavia and northwest Russia have been out of the water for nearly the entire Mesozoic and fashioned a fairly large island within the Cretaceous. Sadly, the mountains there had already fashioned, and a lot of the rock is over a billion years outdated so we get only a few dinosaurs from there as nicely.
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