Episode 46 is all about Alvarezsaurus, a cute, feathery dinosaur.
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On this episode, we talk about:
- The dinosaur of the day: Alvarezsaurus, whose title means “Alvarez’s lizard”
- Lived within the late Cretaceous
- Discovered within the Bajo de la Carpa Formation in Argentina, and named by José Bonaparte in 1991
- Named after the historian Don Gregorio Alvarez
- To not be confused with Luis Alvarez, the physicist and newbie paleontologist who got here up with the speculation that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs
- Luis Alvarez and his son Walter Alvarez, a geologist, got here up with the Alvarez Concept of Extinction, that a big asteroid hit earth and prompted a mass extinction
- Kind species is A. calvoi
- About 6.5 ft (2 m) lengthy and weighed about 45 lbs (20 kg)
- Bipedal, with a protracted tail, and doubtless a quick runner
- Had lengthy legs, lengthy toes, quick arms, lengthy tail, lengthy s-shaped neck
- Tail was over half the dinosaur’s size
- In all probability had feathers or feather-like buildings
- No cranium discovered, however have discovered vertebrae, scapula, partial pelvis and partial hindlimbs and enamel
- Had small unserrated enamel
- Could have eaten bugs
- Probably used arms for digging, although their arms had been to quick to dig burrows; could have clawed into rotting logs for termites
- Claw could have been used to dig out holes in termite mounds after which choose off termites (although modeling research don’t actually help this idea)
- Not utterly clear what the claw was used for
- Can see Alvarezsaurus within the Discovery Channel present Dinosaur Planet, the place it was proven as a predator of a juvenile Saltasaurus (although they didn’t dwell on the identical time–Alvarezsaurus lived about 5 million years sooner than Saltasaurus)
- At one level Alvarezsaurus was considered a flightless chicken, however now thought-about a dinosaur (truly at one level all members within the Alvarezsauridae had been considered birds)
- Alvarezsaurus is among the bigger ones in its group
- The kind genus is the least full and least understood within the Alvarezsaur group
- Shut family members which are higher recognized embrace Shuvuuia and Mononykus (Mononykus is taken into account extra of a chicken than a dinosaur)
- Totally different from different carnivorous dinosaurs on the identical time
- One other alvarezsaurid from the identical formation is Achillesaurus (one research from 2012, Makovicky, stated it could be a synonym, although many individuals nonetheless think about it its personal genus
- Alvarezsauridae is a household of small dinosaurs with lengthy legs (might run quick)
- Alvarezsaurs are small, feathered dinosaurs with small, highly effective arms with one digit (every digit had a big claw)
- Lived 88 to 66 million years in the past
- Present in North and South America and Asia
- They range in size, 20-80 in (0.5-2 m), although some could have been bigger
- Ranged in dimension from the the dimensions of pigeons to turkeys
- Very specialised–Have small birdlike fingers, massive arm muscle tissues (good for tearing or digging), tubular snouts, lengthy jaws, and small enamel
- They had been quick and so they in all probability used their claws to dig out ants and termites, however their arms had been so quick they might have needed to lie on their chests in opposition to the nests to succeed in the bugs (additionally presumably they did one thing else that has not but been established)
- Mammals corresponding to ant-eaters have stout, clawed arms and are toothless (much like Alvarezsaurs)
- However the one option to know for positive what they ate can be to discover a coprolite or some form of proof that reveals what it ate
- Have been considered the earliest recognized flightless birds, however now researchers assume they had been primitive members of Maniraptora
- In 1993 one other alvarezsaur was discovereed, known as Mononykus olecranus (means “one claw”), and the household Alvarezsauridae was considered flightless birds, primarily based on the derived feathers distinctive to birds. Different members of the group later found had been discovered to strengthen that concept, till Shuvuuia mongoliensis in 1998 was mistakenly described as being extra derived, inflicting the group to be regarded as trendy birds (a crown group)
- One species, Shuvuuia deserti, had preserved down-like feathery buildings
- Options considered uniquely chicken like embrace the elongated sternum, the palatine, cervical and caudal vertebrae
- However an evaluation in 1999 discovered that alvarezsaurids had been considerably associated to Ornithomimosauria (ostrich dinosaurs), and birdlike traits got here from convergent evolution
- In 2007 they had been locations as essentially the most basal group in Maniraptora
- Enjoyable Truth: Cephalopods date again all the best way to the Cambrian interval, however the first recognized squid are from the Jurassic period. Which means dinosaurs had been probably consuming calamari, squid had been consuming small dinosaurs, or each…