Episode 416: Steve Brusatte on how mammals survived dinosaurs. Plus information from SVP together with an amazing sauropod cranium from the Antarctic, a bunch of dinosaur embryos, how the distinctive pores and skin of sauropods might have helped maintain them cool, and far more.
Information:
- The Dinosaur Technical Session from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology 2022 annual assembly supply
Interview:
Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist, paleontology advisor for Jurassic World, and writer of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, and extra not too long ago The Rise and Reign of the Mammals
Sponsors:
For 75 years The Folio Society has been turning books into artworks. They at present have particular editions of Jurassic Park, The Misplaced World, and most not too long ago The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs consists of 32 pages of fossil pictures, an 8-page full-colour gatefold illustration, and a big two-sided fold-out color map. Get the right reward for the Dino-lover in your life at foliosociety.com
The dinosaur of the day: Bruhathkayosaurus
- Titanosaur sauropod that lived in Late Cretaceous in what’s now India (Kallamedu Formation)
- In all probability seemed like different sauropods, with a cumbersome physique, lengthy neck, and lengthy tail
- Holotype present in 1978 and consists of hip bones, partial leg bones, a part of the arm, and a tail bone
- Fossils from the Kallamedu Formation are usually not nicely preserved. Monsoon season, with sands and clays from the formation, saturate them with water. Then within the dry season, fossils might broaden within the day and contract at evening. This makes the fossils fragile
- P. Yadagiri and Ok. Ayyasami described Bruhathkayosaurus in 1987
- Fossils began “disintegrating within the area jackets and crumbled to mud earlier than reaching the repository of the Geological Survey of India, Hyderabad”, in line with Saurabh Pal and Krushnan Ayyasami in 2022
- Stated the fossils from the Kallamedu Formation are “very friable in nature”
- Fossils within the delicate sandstone get water-saturated throughout monsoon season and dry in the summertime when it’s intensely sizzling, which contributes to the “crumbly nature of the bones”
- (Holotype not right here, much like Amphicoelias, which we lined in episode 413)
- Authentic description had a couple of line drawings and pictures of the fossils on the dig website, and there weren’t many descriptions of its distinctive options
- Some researchers thought the fossils have been petrified wooden due to the big dimension, and a few thought the discover was a hoax
- Initially considered a carnosaur theropod, much like Allosaurus
- In 1995 Chatterjee re-analyzed the fossils and located Bruhathkayosaurus to be a titanosaur
- Later research discovered Bruhathkayosaurus to be an indeterminate sauropod or nomen dubium
- In 2022 Pal and Ayyasami reviewed the fabric and located the skeleton was actual and Bruhathkayosaurus was in all probability legitimate
- Thought Bruhathkayosaurus to be a sauropod based mostly on the fossils “exceptionally giant dimensions”
- H. F. Blanford was the primary to report giant dinosaur bones from the formation, in 1862
- In 1929 Matley described some giant bones and instructed they have been from a titanosaur, “though he was not capable of extract any bones, even with the best care” (they have been very fragmentary)
- Yadagiri and Ayyasami discovered extra giant bones in 1987 and described Bruhathkayosaurus
- Extra sauropod fossils have been present in the identical space, together with a titanosaur egg
- Plenty of marine sediments within the formation, however there are some areas with vertebrate fossils, together with dinosaurs
- So there’s proof there have been sauropods within the space
- Pal and Ayyasami additionally talked about a further {photograph} that was by no means revealed that exhibits the tibia bone of Bruhathkayosaurus in a plaster jacket (identical tibia because the one within the different pictures that confirmed it within the area)
- Tibia measurements present it was gracile and much like sauropod tibia
- Tibia was 200 cm (about 78 in) lengthy, about 29% bigger than the tibia of Argentinosaurus
- Pictures and diagrams of the ilium and tibia, however not the opposite fossils discovered
- Ilium was 120 cm (about 47 in) lengthy, about 11 cm (about 4 in) smaller than the ilium of Dreadnoughtus
- The proportions of the ilium and tibia might imply they weren’t from the identical particular person, and even the identical species
- Drawings of the ilium bone additionally present a characteristic present in theropod dinosaurs
- Estimated to be about 100 ft or 30 m lengthy, based mostly on illustration within the paper which relies on the tibia bone (a little bit larger than a blue whale)
- Sort species is Bruhathkayosaurus matleyi
- Genus identify means “big bodied lizard”
- Genus identify comes from the Sanskrit phrase Bruhathkaya, which means “big physique”
- Species identify “matleyi” is in honor of Charles Alfred Matley, a paleontologist who discovered many fossils in India
- Different dinosaurs that lived across the identical time and place embody abelisaurids, carnosaurs, sauropods, stegosaurs, titanosaurs, troodontids
Enjoyable Truth:
To exactly mannequin joints transferring you want 6 levels of freedom (3 dimensions and three “translations” of the bones away from the joints).
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