I Know Dino Podcast: Dysalotosaurus

Episode 20 is all about Dysalotosaurus, an herbivore with one of many earliest identified viral infections.

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On this episode, we focus on:

The dinosaur of the day: Dysalotosaurus lettowvorbecki, which implies “uncatchable lizard”
It’s a dryosaurid iguanodontian (herbivore)

It lived within the late Jurassic
Dysalotosaurus fossils have been found within the Tendaguru Formation in Tanzania
The Berlin Museum of Pure Historical past found and excavated Dysalotosaurus fossils, when it was nonetheless German East Africa

Rudolf Virchow named Dysalotosaurus in 1919
All Dsyalotosaurus fossils had been present in one quarry, and between 1910-1913 they discovered 14,000 bones. Additionally within the space they found different dinosaurs, together with the sauropods Giraffatitan and Dicraesosaurus, the stegosaur Kentrosaurus, and the theropod Elaphrosaurus
The identify lettowvorbecki got here from German nationwide hero, Normal Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck. He fought in WWI. in East Africa, and was identified for his guerrilla warfare techniques. He commanded 3,000 Germans and 14,000 Africans (native troopers referred to as Askaris), and although on the time black troopers had been usually discriminated towards, von Lettow-Vorbeck handled all his troopers the identical. He was fluent in Swahili, and in keeping with one historian, “It’s most likely that no white commander of the period had so eager an appreciation of the African’s price not solely as a combating man however as a person.”

von Lettow-Vorbeck was by no means defeated, however he surrendered after he heard concerning the Armistice, in November 1918. His German troopers had been repatriated, however the Askaris had been put in camps. Lettow-Vorbeck labored laborious to have the Askaris be handled decently
Again in Germany, Lettow-Vorbeck opposed the Nazis, and when Hitler supplied him a place in 1935, he declined. He was usually harassed by the Nazis, and the rationale he survived the Nazi years is as a result of he was so in style as a WWI German hero
Sadly many Dysalotosaurus fossils had been destroyed in WWII throughout bombing raids (so know among the greatest information of it are by way of drawings

Of the fossils that survived, just one nonetheless has about 50% of the skeleton
It was once thought-about to be a species of the genus Dryosaurus, however now it’s in its personal genus (Dysalotosaurus)
Dysalotosaurus was medium sized and ran on two legs

Dysalotosaurus was precocial, which means it was born in a complicated state and in a position to deal with itself at a younger age, and have become sexually mature after solely ten years
It’s unclear how shortly it grew, nevertheless it may attain the scale of a big kangaroo
In 2011, two paleontologists Florian Witzmann and Oliver Hampe and their colleagues discovered that among the Dysalotosaurus bones with deformations had been most likely attributable to a viral an infection, making it the “oldest proof of viral an infection identified to science”

It’s much like Paget’s illness of bone, which has irregular bone destruction and regrowth (could also be why it’s laborious to find out the way it grew)
First proof of viral an infection, ever
Scientists have discovered hundreds of Dysalotosaurus bones at various phases of maturity, probably from one herd

Each juvenile and grownup fossils of Dysalotosaurus have been discovered, which allowes Dr. Stephan Lautenschlager and Dr. Tom Hubner to check the species’ mind, at two completely different development phases
The smallest Dysalotusaurus specimen was 0.7 meters lengthy and the biggest was 5 meters lengthy
They used CT scanning and 3D imaging to reconstruct the mind and interior ear of a 3 12 months previous and a 12 12 months previous Dysalotosaurus

They revealed their findings within the Journal of Evolutionary Biology
They discovered that juveniles had robust listening to and cognitive processes however so much modified as they grew older, to assist adapt to their atmosphere
Youthful Dysalotosaurus had shorter snouts and bigger eye sockets (most likely cuter), additionally solely 20 tooth versus 26 tooth as adults. The tooth turned wider in older dinosaurs, and juveniles had three higher tooth that had been slimmer than the remaining (adults didn’t have this), which can imply juveniles had been monivores and adults had been purely herbivores

The research helps present how elements of the mind developed in dinosaurs, however extra analysis is required to determine a sample of mind growth
Dryosaurids lived in the course of the Mid-Jurassic and early Cretaceous interval, in Africa, Europe and North America
They had been primitive iguanodonts

They had been medium-sized, with lengthy legs, small forelimbs, and small, quick snouts
That they had soft-tissue above their eyes, which made them seem like they had been frowning (as seen in trendy birds of prey)
Dryosaurids had been bipedal, with three toes on every foot (however solely representing digits II, III, and IV, not the primary toe, or “hallux”)

They give the impression of being considerably much like ornithopods, equivalent to Hypsilophodon, in order that they was once thought-about “hypsilophodonts.” Now they’re categorised as a part of the Iguanodontia group, which isn’t near Hypsilophodon (Dryosaurids didn’t have premaxillary tooth, which implies they solely used their beak to chunk off vegetation
The primary dryosaurids had been discovered within the 1870s in North America, after which later extra had been present in Africa within the early 1900s, then in Europe within the Nineteen Seventies (the dryosaurid fossils had been discovered earlier in Europe however had been misclassified)
Enjoyable reality: The primary dinosaur was present in North America in 1854, by Ferdinand Vandiveer Hayden whereas he was exploring the higher Missouri River. He discovered some tooth, that Joseph Leidy categorised as a part of Trachodon, Troodon, and Deinodon, in 1856

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