Episode 503: The place Triceratops Lived. Plus an interview with Dr. Bruce Rubidge, skilled within the Karoo Supergroup of South Africa, plus what we find out about Triceratops from a bonebed, the second puzzle within the DI-KNOW-IT-ALL CHALLENGE, and extra.
Information:
- A Triceratops bonebed tells us extra about how Triceratops lived and behaved supply
- There’s a brand new dinosaur cemetery (bonebed) in Yunnan Province, China supply
Interview:
Bruce Rubidge, Professor Emeritus on the College of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and he’s an skilled on the fossils within the Karoo Supergroup in southern Africa.
Di-Know-It-All Problem:
You’ll be able to win a big Spinosaurus tooth, fossilized leaf, and extra by successful our Di-Know-It-All Problem! Every week from episode 502 to 509 we’ll learn a puzzle on the present which you’ll enter to win by answering questions. This week you’ll be able to enter at bit.ly/dinochallenge503 and for those who’re a patron you’ll be able to reply the patron query at patreon.com/posts/107569164. All the foundations for the problem are at bit.ly/dinochallenge24
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The dinosaur of the day: Minotaurasaurus
- Ankylosaur that lived within the Late Cretaceous in what’s now Mongolia (Djadochta Formation)
- Medium sized, estimated to be nearly 14 ft (over 4 m) lengthy, although could have grown, because the sort specimen will not be absolutely grown
- Based mostly on its shut kinfolk, had a barrel-like physique, and brief, stocky legs and arms
- Would have walked on all fours, with its physique low to the bottom
- Consider Ankylosaurus, however possibly spikier (and smaller)
- Most likely was coated in armor, or osteoderms
- Most likely had a tail membership
- Had a triangle-shaped cranium
- Had a small, broad cranium that’s decrease and wider than its relative Tarchia
- Cranium had a “bull-like look with flaring nostrils”
- Had pyramid-shaped ornamentation on the cranium
- Had horns on the finish of the cranium
- Had a beak
- Had leaf-shaped enamel
- Described in 2009 by Clifford Miles and Clark Miles (brothers)
- Holotype is a cranium
- Sort and solely species is Minotaurasaurus ramachandrani
- Genus identify Minotaurasaurus means “Minos-bull reptile”
- Genus identify from the Greek mythological creature the Minotaur, which had the top and tail of a bull and the physique of a person
- Refers back to the cranium trying like a bull cranium
- Species identify ramachandrani is in honor of Vilaynur. S. Ramachandran, who purchased the sort specimen. In line with the paper: “paleontology patron who made positive that this cranium was described and made accessible to science”
- Fossil purchased on the Tucson Gem, Mineral and Fossil Showcase in Arizona
- Ramachandran purchased the cranium in 2003 for $10,000 USD
- Apparently, Clifford Miles and Ramachandran had been strolling across the shows and Miles mentioned in regards to the cranium, “You purchase it, I’ll identify it after you”
- Don’t know precisely the place the fossils had been discovered
- Some paleontologists criticized Minotaurasaurus being described, as a result of the fossil could have been taken illegally from Mongolia
- Ramachandran mentioned he’d return the fossil if it was discovered to have been taken illegally
- Nonetheless, it’s unclear
- Holotype is on the Victor Valley Museum in California, U.S.
- Identified to be immature based mostly on the osteoderms being unfused
- Did a CT scan and located nodes on the cranium weren’t fused to the floor of the cranium however had been extensively reworked bone
- In 2013, a poster at SVP was a few second specimen, discovered by the American Museum of Pure Historical past and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences (from the Djadochta Formation)
- Specimen included a cranium, and a part of the neck half ring
- Referred to Minotaurasaurus based mostly on particulars within the ring scale, the osteoderm, and horn on the cranium
- Had proof of insect burrows within the fossils, in a sample solely seen from the Late Cretaceous Gobi localities (Medusa-like sample)
- Debate over whether or not Minotaurasaurus is a synonym to Tarchia
- Carefully associated to Tarchia
- Tarchia was an ankylosaur that additionally lived within the Late Cretaceous in what’s now Mongolia
- Lined in armor, had spikes on its again
- Identified for having a bigger mind in comparison with different comparable ankylosaurs
- Cranium is also just like Saichania
- Saichania was an ankylosaur that lived within the Late Cretaceous in what’s now Mongolia and China
- Saichania had a broad cranium, and cranium was coated in osteoderms (prime of the snout, higher eye socket rim, horns on the again of the cranium, horns on the cheeks)
- Minotaurasaurus cranium additionally had options seen in Pinacosaurus
- Additionally just like the ankylosaur Shanxia, which lived within the Late Cretaceous in what’s now China
- Discovered to be a sound species in a number of research, that discovered it had distinctive options that weren’t on account of deformation throughout fossilization
- A few of its options had been extra flat or extra horizontal, which made it distinctive
- Discovered the extensive flaring nostrils had been actual, and never from preservation
- Lived in a dry surroundings
- Different dinosaurs that lived across the similar time and place embody dromaeosaurs like Velociraptor, troodontids like Byronosaurus, halszkaraptorines like Halszkaraptor, oviraptorids like Oviraptor, alvarezsaurids like Shuvuuia, ankylosaurs like Pinacosaurus, ceratopsians like Protoceratops
Enjoyable Reality:
Human voices and birdsongs are constructed from the identical genetic blueprint.
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