Episode 511: What Did Victorians Consider Dinosaurs? Edward Dolnick joins to debate how scientists and most people considered dinosaurs within the early 1800s. Plus hadrosaurs dwelling in age-separated teams, two new hadrosauroids: Coahuilasaurus from Mexico and Qianjiangsaurus from China, and the newest installment within the Jurassic Park franchise will probably be known as Jurassic World Rebirth and are available out on July 2, 2025
Information:
- There’s a brand new kritosaurin hadrosaur dinosaur, Coahuilasaurus lipani supply
- There’s a brand new hadrosauroid ornithopod dinosaur, Qianjiangsaurus changshengi supply
- The hadrosaur Hypacrosaurus lived in teams separated by age (juveniles lived individually from adults) supply
- The brand new Jurassic World movie, popping out subsequent July 2, has a title: Jurassic World Rebirth supply
Interview:
Edward Dolnick, the creator of the ebook, Dinosaurs on the Dinner Occasion, which is about how a gaggle of Victorians found prehistoric animals and it modified our understanding of the world
Sponsors:
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The dinosaur of the day: Theiophytalia
- Iguanodontian dinosaur that lived within the Early Cretaceous in what’s now Colorado, U.S.
- Lived about 125 to 100 million years in the past
- Initially regarded as Camptosaurus
- Seemed much like Camptosaurus (DoD in ep 7)
- Which additionally regarded much like Iguanodon
- Might stroll on all fours or simply two
- Had a cumbersome physique, lengthy tail, arms shorter than legs, and an extended cranium
- Estimated to be about 26 to 30 ft (8 to 9 m) lengthy
- Kind and solely species is Theiophytalia kerri
- Named in 2006 by Kathleen Brill and Kenneth Carpenter
- Partial cranium first present in 1878 by James Kerr
- Kerr had graduated from Yale and had tuberculosis, so he went west to discover a treatment
- He grew to become a professor of geology and mining at Colorado Faculty and began trying to find fossils
- Kerr despatched the partial cranium to O.C. Marsh
- Marsh most likely sought out the cranium. He heard about Kerr’s discovery of dinosaur bones and despatched H.C. Beckwith to research, who confirmed to Marsh
- Appears Marsh took credit score for amassing the cranium, or a minimum of the report of the cranium within the archives suggests so
- Marsh thought the cranium got here from the Morrison Formation
- O.C. Marsh referred the cranium in 1887 to Camptosaurus
- On the time, Marsh was getting plenty of specimens from the Bone Wars digs (over a interval of eight years), together with related Camptosaurus skulls that had been present in Wyoming
- Charles Gilmore in 1909 used that cranium to reconstruct the cranium of Camptosaurus
- Not many Camptosaurus skulls or cranium materials has been discovered
- On the time Kerr discovered the fossil, Colorado Faculty didn’t have a spot to retailer them, and most of the containers positioned in barns and cellars have been misplaced
- Kerr wrote: “In 1878, I found in one of many ridges east of the Pink Rocks forming the east boundary of the Backyard of the Gods, parts of 21 sea monsters that had been caught as in a basin in one in every of Earth’s early paroxisms [sic]. There have been many vertebra of enormous measurement. A few of them had been properly preserved. Of the big animal within the type of a saurian, we might discover solely casts of elements. From the lay of those elements, we calculated that the animal was 117 toes in size. A lot of the bones and a few of the casts had been boxed up for Colorado Faculty. The faculty at the moment having no place to retailer such issues, the containers had been positioned in barns and cellars and practically all have been misplaced”.
- After learning the cranium, Brill and Carpenter discovered that soil on it matched Cretaceous soil, not Jurassic interval soil
- Unclear the place precisely the cranium was discovered, solely have the observe Kerr wrote to go by, and the matching soil
- Found out it got here from someplace within the Lytle Member of the Purgatoire Formation, and was from the Early Cretaceous
- Lived on a heat, lush shoreline on the sting of an inland sea
- Shallow sea had plenty of sharks, fish, clams, plesiosaurs, and birds
- Potential the dinosaur washed out to sea and that’s how the cranium was preserved
- Brill and Carpenter discovered some variations within the cranium that made Theiophytalia distinctive (longer, heavier, extra wrinkled snout in comparison with Camptosaurus, for instance)
- Extra carefully associated to Iguanodon than Camptosaurus
- Closest relative was Hippodraco
- Hippodraco is an iguanodontian ornithopod, named in 2010, that lived within the Early Cretaceous in what’s now Utah, U.S.
- Genus title means “horse dragon”
- Had an extended form that regarded considerably like a horse cranium
- Genus Theiophytalia title means “divine backyard” or “backyard of the gods”
- Named for Backyard of the Gods, a park in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the place the cranium was discovered
- Species title is in honor of James Hutchinson Kerr
- Backyard of the Gods is a 1,300 acre nationwide park, with limestone and sandstone formations that span about 300 million years
- Backyard of the Gods was named in 1859 by surveyors from Denver who, when seeing the rock formations, mentioned it was a spot match for gods to assemble
- In all probability an grownup, primarily based on fused bones within the cranium
- Cranium is estimated to be over 18 in (virtually 47 cm) lengthy
- Cranium measurement is in between Camptosaurus and Iguanodon
- Can see a duplicate of Theiophytalia at Backyard of the Gods Customer & Nature Middle
Enjoyable Truth:
Matching dinosaur tracks have been discovered on two totally different continents, over 3,700 mi (6,000 km) aside.
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