Episode 201 is all about Dracorex, The “dragon king of Hogwarts”.
We additionally interview Jaye Jurassick, frequent visitor on the Jurassic Park Podcast and @jaye_jurassick on Instagram the place you may see his dinosaur artwork.
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On this episode, we focus on:
Information:
- A brand new sauropodomorph, Ledumahadi mafube, was the most important dinosaur of its time regardless of nonetheless having a “crouched” posture supply
- A ceratopsian on the Smithsonian has been referred to as Triceratops, Diceratops, and Nedoceratops supply
- In Villány, Hungary (a wine area), bone fragments of a small igaunodont have been discovered supply
- New fossils have been present in Saskatchewan, Canada this summer time, together with an Edmontosaurus cranium, Triceratops bones, Gorgosaurus enamel, and ankylosaur fossils supply
- In Japanese Cape, in South Africa, scientists not too long ago discovered a large dinosaur bonebed. It’s about 200 million years previous, and the animals have been buried collectively by a number of mud supply
- Excellent news for Zuul followers, the ankylosaur goes on show on the Royal Ontario Museum on December 15 supply
- Researchers are recreating a part of the Brazil Nationwide Museum’s assortment with 3D printers supply
- College students aged 11-15 made a big a part of the brand new Idaho Dinosaur Exhibit on the Idaho Museum of Pure Historical past, as a part of the Dino Camps they attended this summer time supply
- A STEM lab at Schuyler-Colfax Center Faculty permits the college to have a lesson plan the place college students dissect dinosaurs in “ZSPACE” digital actuality supply
- Dinosaur Ecosystems, Hong Kong College’s free on-line course, is again! It began September 14, and there are new discipline journeys to Canada, Spain, France, and the desert of Xinjiang, China supply
- Dino 101 additionally not too long ago bought an replace supply
- There’s a brand new sequence for CBBC, referred to as Lethal Dinosaurs demonstrating the facility of dinosaurs supply
- Mashable printed a video of the puppeteers who labored on the dinosaurs in Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom supply
- Hypothesis about Jurassic World 3 consists of the concept that there could also be dinosaurs in area supply
The dinosaur of the day: Dracorex
- It’s a Controversial dinosaur
- In 2009, Goodwin and Horner mentioned that Dracorex was a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus, and Stygimoloch was in between an grownup and juvenile (Pachycephalosaurus was the grownup), primarily based on the truth that they’d comparatively comparable skulls
- Talked about Pachycephalosaurus in episode 93, Stygimoloch in episode 176
- Goodwin and Horner steered that the dinosaur grew and adjusted form because it aged
- Dracorex was half grown, Stgyimoloch was 3/4 grown
- Described in 2006 by Bob Bakker and Robert Sullivan and others
- Based on Bob Bakker, Stygimoloch is completely different due to its large spike cluster (with three enlarged spikes), Dracorex has a shorter, 4 spike association on its head, and that the 2 had completely different sized and formed skulls
- Pachycephalosaurus has a broad, rounded dome, in comparison with Stygimoloch that had a slender dome and bigger horns
- Didn’t have a dome on its head however as an alternative had knobs round two massive holes
- Additionally had horns that have been shorter than Stygimoloch
- Cranium additionally had bumps and had an extended snout and was flat
- Additionally a number of osteoderms (nodes, bigger hornlets, and spikes)
- Cranium has two giant holes (fenestrae)
- In an interview, Bob Bakker mentioned he was thrilled with the thought when he first heard it. No different fashionable species has completed that type of transformation. Horner’s proposal is that the horns develop out of the again of the top as a juvenile, after which reverses and reduces because it reaches maturity, then the horns disappeared and the flat brow grew upword and have become a strong dome of bone, and huge openings within the cranium would shut shortly. Nonetheless, Bakker mentioned he’d studied horn and dome progress in fashionable animals (muskoxen ,giraffes, African Water Buffalo, and none of them have any type of reverse horn improvement as described for Pachycephalosaurus. Additionally Triceratops skulls change over time, however the horns begin small and develop bigger, not the opposite approach round. Bakker additionally mentioned he had a real juvenile Pachycelphalosaurus cranium, about 2/3 the size of an grownup, and the cranium had “a form that’s 95% just like the grownup stage.”
- “The horns are small. The temporal holes are gone. And the dome is large and dome improvement has distorted the neighboring bones above the attention. This juvie Pachycephalosaurus is simply as small because the Dracorex cranium on the Indianapolis Kids’s Museum. However the juvenile Pachycephalosaurus had already acquired the definitive Pachycepahlosaurus head construction – it doesn’t look something like a Dracorex. We now have new Stygimoloch skulls too, the identical dimension because the Dracorex. These stygi skulls are usually not intermediate is form. They’ve a small dome and huge horns – the diagnostic Stygimoloch cranial configuration. So……..although electrifying in its novelty, Jack’s principle merely doesn’t work. Pachycephalosaur dinosaurs did develop like Triceratops – or like muskoxen. Bumps and horns merely bought greater and thicker all by life. There was no sudden, dramatic progress reversal. By the point a person pachy had achieved half-grown dimension, its dome and horns have been taking up the form that was very near what the grownup would have.”
- Nick Longrich and others mentioned in 2010 that each one flat-skulled pachycephalosaurs have been juveniles
- First flat-headed pachycephalosaur present in North America
- Bakker mentioned, “Dracorex is a scientifically important milestone on this planet of paleontology; it proves that household bushes have been nonetheless branching off and evolving, even close to the top of the age of dinosaurs. It demonstrated a world of coloration and motion in nature extra not too long ago than we ever thought attainable.”
- Appears to be like very dragon like
- About 9.8 ft (3 m) lengthy
- Herbivorous
- A part of the household Pachycephalosauridae
- Most much like Stygimoloch and considerably much like Pachycephalosaurus
- Cranium is much like the trendy animal Big Forest Hog (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni), each have comparable size skulls, and lengthy snouts/muzzles. Big Forest Hogs shove with their skulls and ram one another. They’ve highly effective, versatile neck muscular tissues and might elevate opponents off the bottom. Because the battle escalates, they run into one another and ram their flat skulls collectively, generally fracturing bones
- Dracorex might have pressed heads collectively and pushed, and the knobs and ridges on the cranium might have helped maintain the skulls collectively to stop slipping
- Additionally the spikes behind the top might inflict deadly wounds on the flank. Oryx (fashionable antelope) use their backward dealing with horns to kill predators, so Dracorex and Stygimoloch might have completed one thing comparable
- Dracorex was discovered by Steve and Pat Saulsbury (brothers) and Brian Buckmeier, from Sioux Metropolis, Iowa, whereas on a fossil accumulating journey. They donated the cranium to the Kids’s Museum in Indianapolis in late 2004 so it might be studied
- Discovered one almost full cranium, and 4 neck vertebrae
- Sort species is Dracorex hogwartsia
- Identify means “dragon king of Hogwarts”
- Bob Bakker and others named it, and let J. Okay. Rowling know (in a video with Bob Bakker, he mentioned she was a fan of the identify)
- “the species named in honor of her contribution tochildren’s schooling and the enjoyment of exploration” (Bakker mentioned the identify Hogwarts got here to him as quickly as he noticed the cranium)
- Rowling mentioned, “The naming of Dracorex hogwartsia is well essentially the most surprising honor to have come my approach for the reason that publication of the Harry Potter books! I’m completely thrilled to suppose that Hogwarts has made a small claw mark upon the fascinating world of dinosaurs. I occur to know extra as regards to paleontology than many may credit score, as a result of my eldest daughter was Utahraptor-obsessed, and I’m now residing with a passionate Tyrannosaurus rex-lover, aged three. My credibility has soared inside my science-loving household, and I’m very a lot trying ahead to studying Dr. Bakker and his colleague’s paper describing “my” dinosaur, which I can’t assist visualizing as a barely much less pyromaniac Hungarian Horntail.”
- Bakker and others since have discovered 4 Dracorex specimens
- Lived within the Late Cretaceous in what’s now North America
Enjoyable Truth:
We could possibly decide new particulars about dinosaur eyesight and their conduct with well-preserved sclerotic rings (precise bones within the cornea that help the attention) and a preserved orbit (the eyesocket).
Sponsors:
This episode is delivered to you partially by TRX Dinosaurs, which makes stunning and practical dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and animatronics. You possibly can see some superb examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs