Episode 176 is all about Stygimoloch, a dinosaur with superior spikes across the again of its head which some assume is a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus.
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On this episode, we focus on:
Information:
- A brand new paper demonstrates that ceratopsians in all probability didn’t evolve horns and frills to acknowledge each other
- A really questionable speculation means that dinosaurs could not have been in a position to establish poison and by chance began to drive themselves extinct
- Newly described materials helps to help the declare that Paranthodon was a stegosaur
- College students on the College of Kansas lately excavated a doable younger T. rex from the Hell Creek Formation in Montana
- The North Carolina Museum of Pure Sciences in Raleigh, North Carolina, lately unveiled a clutch of oviraptorosaur eggs
- The Philip J. Currie Museum in Alberta is launching a “Paleontologist For A Day” program this summer season
- The Bess Bower Dunn Museum close to in Libertyville, Illinois (close to Chicago), has a brand new life sized Dryptosaurus to welcome guests
- Yorkshire Museum within the UK has a brand new VR exhibit referred to as Yorkshire’s Jurassic World
- This summer season, Milwaukee County Zoo in Wisconsin may have dinosaur summer season camps
- Colin Dunn from the Bureau of Land Administration leads Saturday morning hikes to Prehistoric Trackways Nationwide Monument
- In Essex, within the UK, there’s a brand new vacationer attraction, an 18 gap mini golf course referred to as Mighty Claws Journey Golf
- In Portland, Oregon, a demolition machine adorned to seem like a dinosaur tore down an outdated dentistry constructing.
- ScreenRant revealed that Jurassic World struggles to make dinosaurs scary, we expect they’re simply not attempting arduous sufficient
- Suppose Geek‘s April Idiot’s joke featured a “Jurassic World Dinosaur Detection System”
- Mattel is promoting an enormous assortment of Jurassic World and Jurassic Park toys, Walmart appears to be the principle place to get them in the meanwhile
The dinosaur of the day: Stygimoloch
- An official Snapchat submit for Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom confirmed that Stygimoloch shall be within the film
- Pachycephalosaurid that lived within the Cretaceous in what’s now the U.S. (discovered within the Hell Creek Formation, Ferris Formation, and Lance Formation)
- A number of people have been discovered
- Described in 1983 by Peter Galton and Hans-Dieter Sues
- Sort species is Stygimoloch spinifer
- Identify means “Styx demon” and the title comes from the river Styx, which ran by way of the underworld in Greek mythology, in addition to Moloch, the title of a Canaanite god, as a result of it appeared so weird
- Herbivore that will have been about 10 ft or over 3 m lengthy
- Lived on the identical time and place as Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops
- Had an uncommon trying cranium
- Had clusters of spikes on the again of the cranium, with one lengthy, central horn, surrounded by 2-3 smaller horns
- Had quick hornlets on its nostril, and a pair of huge backward pointing spikes on the again corners of its cranium (unsure what it was used for)
- Had a comparatively small, flattened dome, so in all probability didn’t do a lot head butting
- Cranium ornamentation could have been for show, protection, or for shoving matchings (locking horns, like deer), or to inflict ache when butting flanks
- One article referenced a Stygimoloch cranium that was on public sale in New York a number of years again, however couldn’t discover out what occurred to it, or who ended up shopping for it
- A part of an issue
- In 2009, Mark Goodwin and Jack Horner revealed a paper arguing that Pachycephalosaurus, Stygimoloch, and Dracorex have been all Pachycephalosaurus, representing a development sequence (proposed the concept at SVP in 2007). They thought of Dracorex to be the juvenile, although Bob Bakker and others in 2006 had decided the Dracorex specimen to be an grownup, based mostly on the ornamentation on its cranium and fused bones
- Additionally, Williamson and Carr in 2002 agreed with Goodwin and others from a paper in 1998 that discovered these three taxa to be distinct based mostly on horn dimension and head form (Pachycephalosaurus had a bigger, extra spherical cranium, Stygimoloch has longer horns and a narrower dome)
- Dracorex (named in 2006) didn’t have a dome, had massive horns, and enormous temporal holes within the cranium
- Horner argued that we don’t know precisely how large or how outdated any dinosaur species may get, and that juvenile skulls can look very completely different from grownup skulls
- The concept for lumping the three collectively was that lengthy, sharp horns grew out of the again of the top for the primary half of the dinosaur’s life, after which the horns have been decreased because it reached maturity, and because the horns shrunk, the flat brow grew and expanded right into a stable dome. Additionally, the big openings within the cranium closed when it aged. Dracorex can be a half-grown juvenile, Stygimoloch can be three-quarters grown, and Pachycephalosaurus can be an grownup
- Coated Pachycephalosaurus in episode 93
- Bob Bakker stated he has studied horn and dome development in fashionable animals that butt heads and none of them present a reversal of horn growth (identical goes for well-known horned dinosaurs, although Triceratops horns do develop bigger and its cranium modifications loads throughout development). He additionally stated they checked out a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus cranium, about 2/3 the size of an grownup cranium, and that it had a really related form to the grownup Pachycephalosaurus cranium, with small horns, no holes within the cranium, and a big dome. The cranium is comparable in dimension to the Dracorex cranium discovered, however the two skulls look very completely different
- Bob Bakker stated he and a workforce in contrast Stygimoloch specimens with Dracorex and located their skulls have been related in dimension, so the variations of their skulls weren’t because of age variations (ontogenetic growth)
- He additionally stated these pachycephalosaur dinosaurs (together with Pachycephalosaurus, Stygimoloch, and Dracorex), in all probability all grew like Triceratops, the place bumps and horns acquired larger as they aged, however not development reversal
- Pete Larson posted photographs of the Stygimolch he was engaged on between October 2016 and June 2017. Stated he discovered sufficient variations within the cranium to make Stygimoloch a definite genus (although couldn’t discover a paper of his findings, possibly not prepared?) He discovered a pathology on the “longest” horn on the left squamosal (bacterial an infection), stapes (bone within the center ear) the primary acknowledged disarticulated vomer in a pachycephalosaur (small skinny bone that separates left and proper nasal cavities), and components of the scholortic ring that was round each its eyes
- A remark in one of many papers stated there’s a complication, in {that a} pachycephalosaur cranium present in the identical quarry the place Sue the T. rex was excavated was about the identical dimension because the Dracorex and Stygimoloch skulls discovered, with a dome dimension that was in the midst of the 2 (may present the ontogeny). However it quick spiked nodes on the again of its head as a substitute of lengthy spikes, just like grownup Pachycephalosaurus. This might imply the lengthy spikes fluctuate inside Pachycephalosaurus (appears to be variation in Pachycephalsaurus squamosal) or they’re a definite function of Stygimoloch. Additionally, Pachycephalosaurus and Stygimoloch specimens have been discovered in several stratigraphies, although this kind of knowledge was not likely collected for historic Pachycephalosaurus specimens (would want extra knowledge)
- Nick Longrich and others revealed a examine in 2010 that advised all flat-skulled pachycephalosaurs have been juveniles
- Want extra fossils
- Quote from Bob Bakker: “The important thing to correct interpretations of a fossil species is to be ready to be stunned; don’t assume that each one the traditional creatures and ecosystems match neatly into the ecological typecasting of recent species.”
Enjoyable Reality:
Paranthodon (Pah-RAN-tha-don) africanus was the primary dinosaur found in Africa.
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