Episode 381 is all about Efraasia, a Late Triassic sauropodomorph that was initially considered carnivorous.
We additionally interview Filippo Bertozzo, a postdoc researcher on the Museum of Pure Historical past in Brussels (RBINS). He research a few of our favourite matters together with: paleopathologies, air sacs, and dinosaur conduct. Comply with him on Instagram in English or Italian. Or on twitch at dicendinosaur.
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On this episode, we talk about:
Information:
- The newest paper on Torosaurus considers it to be a sound taxon supply
- Researchers have made new suggestions to deal with decolonizing paleontology supply
- AI will possible quickly assist analyze CT scans and make paleontological analysis extra environment friendly supply
- The sport Jurassic World Evolution 2 has a brand new set of dinosaurs from Camp Cretaceous supply
- A world group of volunteers are dashing to archive Ukrainian museum collections and different content material at SUCHO.org supply
The dinosaur of the day: Efraasia
- Basal sauropodomorph that lived within the Late Triassic in what’s now Baden-Württemberg, Germany (Burrerschen Quarry)
- Regarded like different sauropodomorphs, with a protracted tail, and claws
- Medium-sized and calmly constructed
- Estimated to be about 20 to 23 ft (6 to 7 m) lengthy
- At first considered small, at round 6.6 to 9.8 ft (2 to three m) lengthy, however that was primarily based on juvenile fossils
- In 2003, Yates estimated adults have been 21 ft (6.5 m) lengthy
- Had a small, pointed, triangular cranium
- Had a considerably lengthy neck, that was skinny
- Had low neural spines on the tail
- Had gracile arms and ft
- Could have been bipedal and quadrupedal
- Had lengthy fingers and thumbs it might use to know meals
- Wrist form could have allowed it to stroll on all fours, though not everybody agrees (some suppose the decrease arm couldn’t pronate/rotate in a strategy to put the arms on the bottom, which might imply it might solely stroll on two legs)
- Second finger was longer than the third finger
- Herbivorous
- Initially considered carnivorous
- Gastroliths present in affiliation with one of many specimens, particularly 14 small easy pebbles von Huene reported in 1932
- Sort and solely species is Efraasia minor
- Named after Eberhard Fraas, who discovered the fossils
- Fossils first present in 1902, when Albert Burrer, a stonemason, was attempting to achieve some onerous white sandstone in a quarry close to Pfaffenhofen for constructing (needed to take away about 20 ft or 6 m of softer marl)
- Numerous fossils have been within the marl and underlying delicate sandstone
- When the quarry was closed from 1906 to 1914, Burrer donated the fossils to Eberhard Fraas, a professor on the State Museum of Pure Historical past Stuttgart
- Fossils first considered a part of three already named dinosaurs: Teratosaurus minor, Sellosaurus fraasi, Paleosaurus diagnosticus
- Fossils included vertebrae, proper hindlimb, and pubic bone
- Different fossils have been discovered, together with some in giant slabs, although not totally ready
- Fossils discovered embrace an incomplete cranium, vertebrae, gastralia, ribs, humerus, pubis, femora, tibia, fibula, astragalus, finish of the fitting pes, and extra
- Friedrich von Huene first described the fossils in 1907 and 1908 as Teratosaurus minor
- On the time, Teratosaurus was considered a theropod (now thought-about to be a rauisuchian, a gaggle of archosaurs extra carefully associated to crocodilians than to birds and non-avian dinosaurs
- Species title refers to Teratosaurus minor being smaller than Teratosaurus suevicus (the kind species)
- Von Huene additionally named Sellosaurus fraasi primarily based on a partial skeleton (Sellosaurus is now a synonym of Plateosaurus); talked about in episode 152
- In 1912, Fraas reported two partial skeletons that he assigned to Thecodontosaurus diagnosticus; nevertheless, his well being wasn’t nice so he didn’t formally describe them and it was a nomen nudum
- Von Huene used the species title when he redescribed Fraas’ specimens in 1932, after Fraas died, and known as them Paleosaurus (?) diagnosticus (meant to be a provisional title)
- In 1959, Oskar Kuhn stated the title Paleosaurus was already getting used, for an archosaur named in 1836, and renamed it to Palaeosauriscus
- Allen Charig first used the title Palaeosauriscus diagnosticus in 1967, though Cope had named Palaeosauriscus fraserianus in 1878 (a lot of classifications, however newest appears to be it’s a phytosaur archosaur, primarily based on a tooth)
- In 1973, Peter Galton assigned all of Fraas’ specimens to the brand new genus Efraasia (and named Efraasia)
- He named it Efraasia diagnostica
- In 1985, Galton and Bob Bakker urged Efraasia be a junior synonym to Sellosaurus gracilis
- In 2003, Adam Yates analyzed fossils from the Late Triassic in what’s now Germany, and located Sellosaurus fossils belonged to both Sellosaurus gracilis, which he assigned to be Plateosaurus gracilis, and the remainder was Teratosaurus minor, Sellosaurus fraasi, and Palaeosaurus diagnosticus
- Efraasia was named first
- The species title was extra sophisticated, since Von Huene had written in 1908 in the identical guide about Teratosaurus minor and Sellosaurus fraasi
- Teratosaurus minor appeared on the web page first, so Yates selected minor to be the species title, and the complete title turned Efraasia minor
- Yates didn’t think about two different species von Huene had named primarily based on fragmentary fossils: Teratosaurus trossingensis and Thecodontosaurus hermannianus (Galton in 1990 thought-about them each to be junior synonyms of Efraasia diagnostica)
- Galton stated Efraasia was “a great ancestor for the newer Anchisaurus”, which had some superior options, like the primary metacarpal have been broader, and the primary ungual was shorter
- Galton additionally talked about a pathology in one of many skeletons (an almost full skeleton with an incomplete cranium), the place the fitting humerus was shorter in comparison with the left. Wrote “as the world of fracture is healed and well-finished, the animal will need to have lived for fairly some time after the break”
- In 2017 Mario Bronzati and Oliver Rauhut described the braincase of Efraasia minor
- CT scanned the braincase
- Discovered that the braincase anatomy of sauropods is a results of modifications of their evolutionary historical past, although it’s unclear if it’s because of “fast and drastic morphological change” or as a result of there are a small variety of braincases preserved
Enjoyable Truth:
The T. rex holotype was moved from AMNH to the Carnegie Museum when the US joined WWII to guard it from potential air raids.
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