Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
We've reached 10 years of
0:02
podcasting this year. To
0:04
celebrate, we're mailing Alasaurus patches
0:06
to all of our
0:09
dinoadalls at the Triceratops level
0:11
and up. all by Dino-It-alls.com
0:13
slash inodino to get your
0:15
exclusive Alasaurus patch. by February
0:17
28th Hello
0:25
and welcome to Dino Dino. Keep
0:27
up with the latest
0:29
dinosaur discoveries and science with
0:31
us. and science And I'm
0:33
Sabrina. I'm Garrett today, in our
0:35
our we're talking about
0:37
dinosaur dancing and movement. Yes,
0:40
we also We also have of the Day,
0:42
of the Day, and a
0:44
and a guanodont that lived in the
0:46
the early and our fun fact.
0:56
In other words, some sort of movement.
0:58
movement. And we are still And we are
1:00
still on parental leave. this We are
1:02
recording this early, so we're actually
1:04
expecting our second baby soon, but it
1:06
seemed like a good idea to
1:09
record a few episodes ahead of time.
1:11
They're unpredictable. Sometimes they show up
1:13
early. Yes. So it's good to have these
1:16
things ready in advance. advance. Since already
1:18
have a toddler. It was
1:20
a little bit too difficult to
1:22
record enough to have weekly
1:24
episodes this time, so we are
1:26
trying out bi out biweekly, worry,
1:28
we will be back soon. soon,
1:30
the meantime, I hope you I
1:32
this episode on episode on But
1:34
before we start talking all about dinosaur
1:36
dancing and movement, we have some patrons
1:38
to thank. And this
1:40
week they are patrons to
1:42
Amber, and Travis, they are Anna Rose, Amber,
1:45
Travis, Michael, Fia, Linda, Claire.
1:47
Jurassic pirate, Larissa,
1:49
and Mary. Thank you Thank you
1:51
all very much for joining. joining and our
1:53
our dinosaurs moving and
1:56
dancing. Yes, yes, thank you so
1:58
much Thank you
2:00
so much for
2:02
your support. We appreciate you
2:04
always, but we especially appreciate it
2:06
while we're able to take some
2:08
time off for our growing family.
2:10
Yes, and I really enjoy going
2:12
into the Discord Server when we're
2:14
having a lot of other distractions.
2:16
It's a good place to relax.
2:18
So if you'd like to check
2:20
out our Discord Server or join
2:22
this amazing group of people, then
2:24
please consider joining our patreon.com.com/Inodino. if
2:26
all goes according to plan and
2:28
I think it will this episode
2:30
will be coming out just at
2:32
the beginning of the new year
2:34
so happy new year hey hey
2:36
yeah and I was thinking about
2:38
how one of the most common
2:40
new year resolutions is to exercise
2:42
which is what got me thinking
2:44
about dinosaur movement and also I
2:46
was thinking about dancing because there's
2:48
a lot of dancing that happens
2:50
on New Year's Eve probably not
2:52
for us this year with the
2:54
newborn and the toddler but who
2:56
knows We might be dancing to
2:58
get them to sleep. Yeah, that's
3:00
true. Bouncing. Yeah. Rocking. I am
3:02
saying this a couple months ahead
3:04
of time. We can try. Anyway,
3:06
this episode's about dinosaurs dancing, which
3:08
is really about courting and mating,
3:10
and also about how they moved
3:12
in general. But real quick before
3:14
we get into that, I have
3:16
another New Year's item. So the
3:18
last couple of years, we've been celebrating
3:21
the New Year with a special
3:23
dynamital patch, and we're doing it
3:25
again this year. Also, an extra
3:27
special year for us because we're
3:29
celebrating 10 years of the I-N-O-Dino
3:31
podcast. So if you join our
3:33
community at the triceratops tier or
3:35
above by the end of this
3:37
February, we'll send you an exclusive
3:39
allosaurus dynamital patch. Yay, carnivores! Yeah,
3:41
first time we're doing a carnivore.
3:43
Yes, or if you're already a
3:45
patron, make sure your address is
3:47
up to date so we can
3:49
send you your patch. And that's,
3:51
again, at patron.com/I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n- I would say
3:53
it's really hard to know how
3:55
dinosaurs moved since we mostly know
3:57
them from their bones and some
3:59
trace marks. Yeah, occasionally you
4:01
get some muscles and skin and
4:03
fat, fat, collagen gives gives you some
4:05
hints at how their bones were
4:07
connected, but often not, often you're
4:09
just working with the bones. bones. Yes.
4:12
So it's it's hard to know how
4:14
they they moved. even harder to know how
4:16
they danced, danced, I'd say, but there
4:18
is some evidence of some dinosaurs dancing.
4:20
at least. At least. We just don't know the
4:22
choreography. I see was a
4:25
was a dinosaur dance floor
4:27
discovered in 2008 on
4:29
the Arizona -Utah border in
4:31
the U.S. What What do you mean
4:33
by dinosaur dance floor? dance were so
4:36
many tracks as as
4:38
well as some
4:40
dinosaur tail drag marks. Okay, so
4:42
so this isn't like a constructed
4:44
floor. This is more
4:46
like a dinosaur dance
4:48
area. Yes, it's not not like
4:50
a disco or something like
4:53
that. A disco. I can say a
4:55
club. I can say
4:57
something more modern. was, it was a sandy
4:59
desert oasis was, it was a
5:01
sandy desert But like I million
5:03
years ago. some rare But like I
5:05
said, it includes some rare dinosaur
5:07
tail There's There's fewer than a dozen
5:09
dinosaur tail drag marks. marks found around
5:11
the world. these marks, these
5:14
marks two and a half, and a
5:16
half, almost two and a half
5:18
inches wide and up to and feet
5:20
long. feet There's more than than a dinosaur
5:22
tracks. There's probably multiple thousands. multiple which is
5:24
why they called it a dinosaur dance floor. dance
5:27
There's probably multiple types of dinosaurs
5:29
that made the tracks. There's at
5:31
least four species, and they found
5:33
tracks from and small, medium, and large
5:35
theropods, as well as medium, and large and
5:37
these animals range from adults
5:39
to juveniles. animals ranged that it's
5:41
so many different types of so
5:43
many different types of I'm guessing it
5:46
didn't all happen at the same
5:48
time. same time. But the scientists compared
5:50
it to Dance Dance Revolution it there
5:52
were so many tracks. Revolution all
5:54
the arrows so many a row.
5:56
all the all the in a
5:59
row. Yeah, all the stumps. Originally, these tracks
6:01
were thought to be pot holes
6:03
from erosion. They were made in
6:05
what was a wet, low watering
6:07
hole between the dunes. But now
6:09
scientists consider them to be tracks
6:12
and not pot holes because they're
6:14
the right size. They're limited to
6:16
a single rockbed. There's four types
6:18
of footprint shapes that are seen
6:20
repeatedly. One third of the prints
6:22
are surrounded by small ridges or
6:24
mounds from stepping in wet sand.
6:26
The tracks show a direction of
6:29
travel to the west and southwest.
6:31
And there's signs of... over printing
6:33
where a dinosaur would have stepped
6:35
in a footprint. Yeah, so it's
6:37
kind of like a double exposure
6:39
in photography. It's a double footprint
6:41
on top of itself. Mm-hmm. Double
6:43
footprint. There was a 2024 study
6:46
by J.A. McLarty and R. Esperante
6:48
that studied the Therapod tracks that
6:50
showed the dinosaurs turning between 44
6:52
to 84 degrees. Four trackways in
6:54
eight sites are found with stopping
6:56
or pausing points. In one case,
6:58
one of the dinosaurs was limping.
7:01
In another case, there's a sudden
7:03
abrupt change in direction. It's possible
7:05
it was responding to an unknown
7:07
obstacle, and then it returned to
7:09
its original orientation. So maybe it
7:11
was a dinosaur that was avoiding
7:13
another dinosaur that was in motion.
7:15
And there's a trace that shows
7:18
a possible Therapot crouching, which is
7:20
pretty cool. So it sounds like
7:22
that one isn't any sort of...
7:24
actual dancing. It's more of a,
7:26
they call it a dance floor
7:28
just because there's so many tracks.
7:30
Yes, but you see the movement
7:32
and you see unusual movements because
7:35
usually we just see the walking.
7:37
So I guess we can't officially
7:39
rule out dancing. Yeah. But maybe
7:41
the simpler explanation is more like
7:43
avoiding obstacles and things like that.
7:45
Maybe. Like I said, we don't
7:47
know the choreography. I've talked about
7:49
trace fossils before in previous episodes
7:52
and there are a lot of
7:54
tracks that have been found around
7:56
the world. Another big one.
7:58
is the Carrera's Pompa
8:00
site in Bolivia.
8:02
Bolivia. That's not the vertical
8:04
one. one, it's from the
8:06
from the Lake It's the world's
8:09
largest concentration of dinosaur of
8:11
They found 978 trackways so
8:13
far. So it's probably a lot
8:15
it's probably a lot of individuals making
8:17
these We We don't know exactly how
8:19
many, how but they're made by theropods
8:21
of various sizes. of The track lengths
8:23
range lengths range from inches
8:25
to almost to inches 13 inches. Little
8:28
over seven two. 33
8:30
centimeters. They're from theropods,
8:32
from sizes, different sizes, over 29 anywhere from
8:35
over 29 or to 1 .3 meters
8:37
or over 11 inches to over
8:39
four feet at the hip. was saying,
8:41
we see tracks like I was saying, we
8:43
see tracks a they're walking in a straight line, but
8:46
apparently for this one there's some evidence
8:48
of tail of tail and swimming, although a
8:50
work - in progress, in we don't know the
8:52
details yet. the details yet. So maybe
8:54
some of the tail dragging is into or out
8:56
of the water something like that. or could
8:58
be. that? Could be. there is evidence
9:01
of of that were dancing in that
9:03
that they were probably... doing doing
9:05
some like mating or courtship dances. In 2016
9:07
In 2016, Martin others and
9:09
others published on scrape marks, they're There
9:11
are about 50 of them found
9:14
in sandstone from a million years ago
9:16
in Colorado. ago in And the scrapes
9:18
are up to two meters in diameter
9:20
in diameter, scrapes. So maybe it's from
9:22
lecking. Like males are performing a mating
9:24
ritual to attract females to we see
9:26
with grouse. like we Yeah, there's a lot of
9:28
birds that do that kind of thing. of
9:30
birds that do that is the best analogy for
9:32
really is the best the dirt. You think so. into
9:35
the dirt. I think Now, nearby at the
9:37
same time, so yeah, maybe it's
9:39
from acrocanthosaurus. it's from he has
9:42
two meters in diameter of a in
9:44
diameter of very large. That's almost seven
9:46
feet. almost seven feet. Yes.
9:48
And they run in in five six foot
9:50
patterns and they resemble traces that
9:52
are left behind by cording birds. birds.
9:55
So the the team actually compared
9:57
them to to and ostriches. ostriches. The
9:59
thinking as the traces were made
10:01
in breeding season in springtime. There's four
10:03
sites with large nest scrape display traces
10:06
identified, and that helps support this mating
10:08
dance idea. And then in 2024, Roger
10:10
C.C.C. Button and others found more evidence
10:13
for mating displays or nest building behaviors.
10:15
At Dinosaur Ridge in Morris and Colorado
10:17
in the US, there's scrapes along with
10:20
ancient microbial mats in vertebrates and plant
10:22
traces. Specifically, there's two large symmetrical troughs
10:24
with 30 sets of scratch marks that
10:27
preserve toe marks. There's sharp vertical walls
10:29
of individual scratches, which may mean the
10:31
area was moist to water undersaturated when
10:34
the marks were made. It's not good
10:36
conditions for a nest. And then behind
10:38
the troughs are microbial mat chips and
10:41
fragments, and the mat chips were ripped
10:43
off by theropods, toe claws. The microbial
10:45
mats and good preservation from a second-generation
10:47
match shows that the marks were made
10:50
in spring probably before the breeding season.
10:52
So all seems to point to mating
10:54
dances. Yeah, I think I remember reporting
10:57
on this way back in the day
10:59
and looking into what the lecking displays
11:01
are like and everything. And like you
11:04
were saying, one of the big pieces
11:06
of evidence is not that there are...
11:08
is something specific about one of those
11:11
scratch marks, but that there are just
11:13
a whole bunch of them in one
11:15
location that fossilized together. And what you
11:18
see was lecking in some of these
11:20
birds today is that there will be
11:22
a bunch of males in the same
11:25
general area trying to get attention of
11:27
a few females. So... the fact that
11:29
they're all doing it together is significant.
11:32
Sort of like the earlier version of
11:34
dinosaur nesting sites where you find a
11:36
whole bunch of eggs in the same
11:38
area kind of shows you that they're
11:41
possibly doing some sort of courtship and
11:43
mating in the same area. This is
11:45
just another piece of that story. Yeah.
11:48
So then that brings me to mating.
11:50
We don't really know how non-avian dinosaurs
11:52
mated. There's no direct evidence that's been
11:55
found. No fossil. found of dinosaurs in
11:57
the act, for example. We do think
11:59
they probably had cloakers, like modern birds.
12:02
We do. That's all of the above
12:04
hole. If it was similar to crocodiles
12:06
and birds, it probably was a quick
12:09
process. We do know a lot of
12:11
dinosaurs had ornamentation, possibly to attract mates,
12:13
like horns and frills or feathers or
12:16
crests. There is evidence of maybe one
12:18
mating pair of dinosaurs. They're known as
12:20
Romeo and Juliet. They're a pair of
12:22
overrapped resource found in 2011, specifically their
12:25
con. That was our dinosaur of the
12:27
day back in episode 290. I think
12:29
they also went by Sydney and Nancy.
12:32
Sid and Nancy. Sid and Nancy. Yes,
12:34
but... I like Romeo and Juliet, yeah.
12:36
Especially because they got fossilized together. Yes,
12:39
they were found in the Gobi Desert,
12:41
they died and were buried together. They
12:43
died after some sudden rains, which caused
12:46
her sand dune to collapse on them.
12:48
probably. Just like the fighting dinosaurs. Yeah.
12:50
But these were lovers, not fighters, potentially.
12:53
Right. They run the gamut in the
12:55
goby. And they had feathers, but they
12:57
didn't fly. So it seems like the
13:00
feathers could be for attracting mates. They
13:02
were also about the same size, same
13:04
build, probably around the same age, based
13:07
on some fused vertebrae, they are thought
13:09
to both be adults. But one of
13:11
them had... large bony structures in the
13:13
tail, which might have been to support
13:16
muscles used for tail feather displays, like
13:18
modern peacocks. And the one with the
13:20
muscles for tail feather displays was probably
13:23
male, and then the one with the
13:25
smaller bony structures was probably female, because
13:27
then it would have had more room
13:30
or been easier to lay eggs. The
13:32
tail was flexible and muscular, so it
13:34
could shake its tail feathers to attract
13:37
mates, in theory. And Scott persons and
13:39
others ruled out that it was a
13:41
pathology on the tail. They said the
13:44
structures were too different to be individual
13:46
variation as well. But it's so hard
13:48
to know. Yeah, sexual dimorphism from just
13:51
two individuals is hard to say for
13:53
sure. But that's really cool. Mm-hmm. Now
13:55
in terms of... how dinosaurs
13:57
moved, in in general. Hausen,
14:00
who's a famous who's a
14:02
famous animator, I found
14:04
wrote, wrote, quote, I
14:07
found dinosaurs to be the ideal subject for
14:09
stop motion animation. The The fact that nobody
14:11
knew how those huge reptiles had moved
14:13
or, for that matter, exactly how they looked
14:15
meant that I could bring them alive
14:17
without any fear of criticism. alive without any fear of
14:19
times have changed. times have he
14:21
just wasn't aware of how critical
14:23
of how could be at the
14:25
time. could or. the time. You know,
14:28
know, we know a lot more now than we did
14:30
when he he was animating. That's true.
14:32
In 1841, Richard 1841, Richard Owen
14:34
envisioned dinosaurs as standing and moving
14:36
more like mammals and birds
14:38
than sprawling reptiles based on studying
14:40
their limb anatomy, a joint seemed to keep
14:42
to keep them in this
14:44
erect posture and restrict limb movements
14:46
to a a parallel to the
14:48
body. This is known as known
14:50
as gait. gait. Yeah, I think that
14:52
I think that mammalian look is a
14:54
good description of what he advised
14:56
for the crystal dinosaurs, where they kind
14:58
of look like big bears. like big bears. It
15:00
does, It does, yes, especially that
15:02
Megalosaurus. But then people people started
15:04
thinking of dinosaurs as
15:07
sluggish and dragging their tails
15:09
until the the renaissance the the 1960s
15:11
and 1970s. John
15:13
Hutchinson, who's done a who's done a lot
15:15
of research around dinosaur locomotion, said way
15:17
back in 2005 that to figure
15:19
out how dinosaurs moved, we need to
15:21
know more about their biology. biology. You've
15:23
focus on their entire limb, not just the
15:25
bones, and also look at the look other
15:28
evidence they left behind. they left
15:30
behind. So do know on models made
15:32
from made skeletons and footprints, the dinosaurs
15:34
had an erect posture, and the limb
15:36
motion is mostly from the hip. is
15:38
mostly We'll get more into how how moved
15:40
in just a moment, but first we're gonna
15:42
take a quick break for our sponsors. a quick
15:45
break for our sponsors. Ten years ago,
15:47
years ago, after a and wedding we
15:49
realizing we didn't want to stop
15:51
talking about dinosaurs, we started this
15:53
podcast. And I And I want
15:55
to say thank you so much
15:57
to our listeners, especially our Dino at all,
15:59
for - supporting us and making this
16:02
show possible, and we will be
16:04
celebrating all year. The last couple
16:06
years, our special limited edition patches
16:08
have been a big hit, so
16:10
to kick off the celebrations, if
16:12
you're a patron at the triceratops
16:14
level or above, by the end
16:16
of this February, we'll send you
16:19
a special limited edition Allosaurus Dinodol
16:21
patch. Yes, we are finally doing
16:23
a carnivore. Yeah, the head is
16:25
in red and black and I
16:27
think it turned out great with
16:29
the teeth highlighted in a stitched
16:31
red outline. And if you want
16:34
to see that new Allisores patch,
16:36
head over to patreon.com/ionodino. And while
16:38
you're there, if you like what
16:40
you see, you can join our
16:42
dynamodal community. And if you've already
16:44
joined, make sure your mailing address
16:46
is up to date. If you
16:48
sign up at the triceratops level
16:51
or above, you'll get your own
16:53
Allisores patch. Again, just make sure
16:55
that you join by February 28th,
16:57
you have two months to join
16:59
this year, that's part of our
17:01
10-year anniversary celebrations. And again, to
17:03
check out the new Allisores patch,
17:05
and or to sign out to
17:08
join our community, head over to
17:10
patron.com/Ainodino. One thing that would have
17:12
affected how dinosaurs move is whether
17:14
or not they were more warm-blooded
17:16
or cold-blooded. A 2022 study found
17:18
that ornithiscians were more likely cold-blooded
17:20
and soripods warm-blooded, although a study
17:22
in 2024 found the opposite. Those
17:25
are such recent studies to be
17:27
on completely different pages. Yes. The
17:29
2024 study found that the three
17:31
main dinosaur groups, theropods, soripods, ornithiscians,
17:33
adapted differently to changes in temperature.
17:35
and that the ability to regulate
17:37
body temperature evolved in the Jurassic
17:39
about 180 million years ago. They
17:42
looked at fossils from a thousand
17:44
species, and they also looked at
17:46
a lot of different paleo-climates, and
17:48
they found that theropods and ornithiscians
17:50
seemed to spread to live in
17:52
colder climates in the early Jurassic,
17:54
so maybe they evolved endothermy, where
17:57
they could generate their own body
17:59
heat. be warm -blooded. Those
18:01
groups are Those groups are adaptable and
18:03
they did well in various climates. There are
18:05
therepods in warm and dry climates, as well
18:07
as cooler and more seasonable climates. climates,
18:09
and that went to more humid
18:11
and seasonal climates. humid and seasonal
18:14
though, stayed in warmer, lower latitude areas,
18:16
and not just for the food. for
18:18
the food. is that is that they were more
18:20
more cold -blooded. Otherwise they would have overheated
18:22
and needed to eat more food than even
18:24
was sustainable. even was sustainable. That's
18:27
true, because cold -blooded animals don't need
18:29
nearly as much food, because they're
18:31
not turning all that food into
18:33
heat for themselves. into heat for themselves. There
18:35
is some debate on this on some
18:37
debate on whether there's a sampling issue issue,
18:39
which dinosaurs were included in the study.
18:42
in the study. the other hand, it hand, it
18:44
would have shed too much heat in
18:46
the neck alone the they were in cooler
18:48
climates. climates. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah,
18:50
Yeah, cause even if you're warm you're cold
18:53
-blooded, your body makes a
18:55
big difference. Like you look at things
18:57
like penguins that are so round. so round. Yes.
18:59
And And with humans too, right? Our Our
19:01
limbs tend to get shorter as we're
19:03
closer to the poles the time time when
19:05
we're near the equator. the equator. Yes. So maybe
19:08
this will be will be an ongoing debate
19:10
for a while. a while. There's been a lot of been
19:12
a lot of studies on dinosaur movement. And
19:14
I think it think it makes sense to break
19:16
it down by the three main groups, starting with
19:18
the starting with the Theropods. in
19:20
really handy for these studies. studies.
19:22
There was one done by Pasha A. Van
19:25
and others, found that two -legged
19:27
dinosaurs used their tails when walking. their
19:30
the questions they asked her. What's the preferred
19:32
walking speed and what's the optimal walking
19:34
speed? And they found
19:36
the optimal walking speed? And under that
19:38
miles per hour, which is
19:40
similar to humans and other
19:43
animals, like ostriches, horses, and
19:45
elephants, giraffes, noose, and horses, They
19:47
are all. news, 2 .2 to
19:49
3 .1 miles per hour. 3.3 to 3.
19:51
This This natural walking speed minimizes
19:53
the amount of body energy
19:55
spent. the study So this study
19:58
predicted a slower walking speed than other
20:00
studies for Tyrannos. But anyway, they also found
20:02
theropods used their tails while moving, but
20:04
the tails were supported in stiff. They
20:06
were suspended by ligaments that behave like
20:08
rubber bands, and it made them like
20:11
a mass spring system or a suspension
20:13
bridge with lots of muscle in it.
20:15
The tails did have some flexibility. They
20:17
would have moved back and forth with
20:20
each step. What they did was they
20:22
made a computer model of the tail
20:24
based on tricks the T-Rex, which is
20:26
about 39 feet or 12 meters long.
20:28
and gave it a walking speed of
20:31
2.86 miles per hour. They didn't look
20:33
at the max speed, just the optimal
20:35
speed. Yeah, a lot of times it's
20:37
easier to find that optimal speed because
20:40
you can look at the spacing of
20:42
tracks. You can sort of do a
20:44
calculation on the pendulum of their leg,
20:46
or you can look at range of
20:48
motion and all sorts of things to
20:51
that effect. But for looking at the
20:53
maximum speed, that's so much more complicated.
20:55
Because then you're talking about maximum range
20:57
of motion and you probably don't have
21:00
tracks of it running. So you're going
21:02
to have to infer that from a
21:04
whole bunch of estimates on where muscles
21:06
and ligaments would be, how flexible joints
21:08
would be, how much cartilage there is.
21:11
It's much more complicated. Yes. There are
21:13
other studies that have found that on
21:15
the max speed size it could go
21:17
up to like. 12 miles an hour
21:20
and 18 miles an hour or 20
21:22
to 29 kilometers per hour. Any faster
21:24
than that and the bones may have
21:26
shattered. Yeah. So in that case you're
21:28
looking at what's the limit of the
21:31
bone strength, which is one way to
21:33
look at it, but not all animals
21:35
get close to that. Yes. It's not
21:37
often the limiting factor that you're going
21:40
to break a bone if you run
21:42
any faster. Sounds painful though. Don't go
21:44
too faster, you'll break a bone. Anyway,
21:46
this isn't the only study that looked
21:48
at a dinosaur's tail. There was one
21:51
in 2021 by Peter Bishop and others
21:53
that made a computer simulation of cylophysis.
21:55
That's a therapy that lived in the
21:57
Triassic. It's on two legs. It had
22:00
long legs and a long heavy tail.
22:02
And it's really well known because a
22:04
lot of fossils have been founds. so
22:06
that made it easier to build this
22:08
model. And they found that its tail
22:11
helped it walk and run because it
22:13
wagged its tail side to side, similar
22:15
to how we swing our arms when
22:17
we walk. And so it's possible other
22:20
dinosaurs did this too. So the tails
22:22
are important for movement, not just the
22:24
legs. Yeah. And the tail kind of
22:26
wagged to the left when the left
22:28
leg retracted backwards. When the model forced
22:31
the tail to wag in the opposite
22:33
way, they found the dinosaur had to
22:35
move differently in a way that took
22:37
more energy. Yeah, it's like if you
22:40
ever walk and try to swing your
22:42
arms with the leg that's going forward,
22:44
it feels really awkward and weird. Yes.
22:46
But the cool thing with the tail
22:48
is that it has those muscles that
22:51
attach to the back of the leg,
22:53
so that swing to the side literally
22:55
pulls up the leg using the codofemoralus
22:57
muscles. They'd get this extra sort of
23:00
pendulum effect of the tail going from
23:02
side to side, and this rhythm to
23:04
their walking that we don't get to
23:06
take advantage of. I mean, I guess
23:08
our arms do a little something, but
23:11
it's not as efficient. Yes. And they
23:13
also found that it used more energy
23:15
without the tail. So the tail's important
23:17
for movement. There was another study in
23:20
2020 of Cylophysis that simulated it running
23:22
and found that it had a more
23:24
upright posture than modern birds around the
23:26
same size. So probably used a more
23:28
upright or extended leg posture instead of
23:31
using a more flexed hip when running
23:33
fast. A study in 2018, by Bishop
23:35
and others, compared ground running birds to
23:37
predict how bipedal dinosaurs moved based on
23:40
their speed and body size. So the
23:42
model did require knowing an animal's body
23:44
mass and speed. And they examined 12
23:46
species that ranged in size from 45
23:48
grams to 80 kilograms or one and
23:51
a half ounces to 176 pounds. It's
23:53
quite a range. And then they recorded
23:55
them moving at different speeds on racetracks.
23:57
So these are living animals. They included...
24:00
quails, tina Tina Moose.
24:02
emus, and turkeys. They and
24:04
turkeys. birds move in found birds move
24:06
in a continuum from walking to
24:09
running. a They have a really
24:11
smooth transition. Yes, Yes, they're not
24:13
like us, where you can really feel
24:15
the difference as soon as you go from
24:17
walking fast to jogging, and that one leg's
24:19
getting off the ground, the they do this
24:21
thing called fast walking, walking, which is like an
24:23
exact in between. I'm always amazed amazed you
24:25
ever chase a bird or see somebody
24:27
chase a bird, they keep one foot on
24:29
the ground the their feet are going back
24:31
and forth so rapidly forth so they finally
24:33
get to an actual run. And a lot
24:35
of them switched to flying these days to
24:37
ever really running. It's more just a
24:40
faster and faster walk. walk. Yes, another study
24:42
another study from earlier in 2017
24:44
that their step width decreases as
24:46
the speed increases, so the as get
24:48
closer as they speed up. the
24:50
step width that the step width
24:52
decreased gradually with dinosaurs and birds.
24:55
it But for us humans, as it
24:57
changes changes a and sudden and we're switching
24:59
from walking to running. walking to
25:01
we have distinct walking and running
25:03
gates. and and you can easily tell
25:05
the difference tell the we're doing either
25:07
of them. them. Yeah, it could be partly why
25:09
it's so hard to find running tracks of
25:11
dinosaurs. Cause maybe you you at a
25:13
track and you're like, that's a regular walking track,
25:15
but it's actually a running track. it's hard to tell
25:17
the difference. track and it's hard when the birds
25:19
keep their feet on the ground, at the
25:22
same time, it's called feet on the of grounded running. it's
25:24
called intermediate gate I've heard it
25:26
called running. walking before yeah, I've I guess grounded
25:28
running is good, too but I guess grounded
25:30
running other other did the same
25:32
as birds. Birds are theropods, but but
25:35
non-avian ones. Usually we think of running
25:37
of running when are momentarily off the
25:39
ground, off but there is an updated
25:41
definition I found, which is I found,
25:43
which is bouncy locomotion. So with dinosaurs they were with dinosaurs, They
25:45
they were one foot They walked one foot
25:47
directly in front of the other. is an Bouncy
25:50
is an interesting thing like it's part part
25:52
of the body needs to bounce we run,
25:54
we run whole like our whole body
25:56
bounces watch you watch something like a or
25:58
or something. They're almost more like... like curling
26:00
up and then stretching out and it
26:02
really looks very smooth. You see a
26:05
slow motion of it, their head is
26:07
pretty steady and even their back and
26:09
stuff doesn't go that high, doesn't really
26:11
bounce per se, but to say a
26:13
cheetah isn't running would be crazy. Yes.
26:16
Well that 2018 study found that T-Rex
26:18
would have moved in a more bouncing
26:20
like way. It kind of happened at
26:22
the bigger sizes as a little bouncer.
26:24
It does often seem like birds are
26:27
able to do some of that fast.
26:29
walking or grounded running because they're so
26:31
small. Getting those really tiny thin legs
26:33
to flip back and forth really quick
26:35
is a lot easier than getting hundreds
26:38
of pounds of leg to do the
26:40
same thing. Yes. Well, as you can
26:42
imagine, there's been a lot of studies
26:44
that compare birds to their nonavian ancestors,
26:47
and that makes sense. You can infer
26:49
how dinosaurs moved based on looking at
26:51
birds. For example, a study in 2010
26:53
found that ostriches used their wings to
26:55
help... break quickly, turn, and zigzag, which
26:58
might mean that dinosaurs like gigantoraptor use
27:00
their feathered arms to help them maneuver
27:02
and keep them stable. Think of it
27:04
like a jet plane. It's like they
27:06
put a flap down and it grabs
27:09
a bunch of air so they turn
27:11
really quick in that direction. They're the
27:13
same thing with an ostrich sticking out
27:15
a wing. Yeah. They also found in
27:17
ostriches a small intertarsal muscle that's important
27:20
for movement. Oh. So if non-avian theropods
27:22
had it, they could have had similar
27:24
running styles, and that could mean it
27:26
took less energy to run so they
27:29
would have been able to run longer
27:31
and faster. There also seems to be
27:33
a link between wing size and function.
27:35
Emus and cassowaries have small wings. They
27:37
hold them tight to their body and
27:40
don't use it in locomotion. Interestingly, a
27:42
2021 study found that early dinosaurs moved
27:44
differently from birds, which also makes sense
27:46
because things might change over time. They
27:48
used 3D computer models to see how
27:51
35 leg muscles evolved over 230 million
27:53
years, and they found that the hip
27:55
and knee muscles changed. Large carnivorous theropods
27:57
that used two legs to walk in
27:59
the early Jurassic evolves some special muscles
28:02
that made their leg joints more mobile
28:04
and might be related to taking on
28:06
larger prey. But this reversed in birds.
28:08
So early dinosaurs may have moved more
28:10
like mammals than birds. Maybe Richard Owen
28:13
was right. In some ways. Oh, and
28:15
last, just for fun, I wanted to
28:17
bring up, we've talked about this before,
28:19
but that 2015 study that got the
28:22
Ig Nobel Prize, that's for work that
28:24
makes you laugh and then think. It
28:26
was research done by Jose Ariarte Diaz
28:28
on Dinosaur Movement, and he attached a
28:30
fake tail to chickens to see how
28:33
it affected their walk. He was modeling
28:35
clay to attach the tail, a wooden
28:37
stick, to chickens two days after hatching,
28:39
and he worked on 12 chickens. It
28:41
was described like putting a plunger on
28:44
their butt, which is basically what it
28:46
looked like. It did. And he would
28:48
change the tail every five days as
28:50
they grew and then compared their movements
28:52
to chickens without tails, and suggested that
28:55
dinosaurs walked with a vertical stance and
28:57
most of the movement in the hips,
28:59
more like humans. But the chickens without
29:01
the plunger tails had more horizontal movements
29:03
with the knees doing most of the
29:06
work. Yeah, that goes back to that.
29:08
The tail helps a little bit with
29:10
balance and things like that. Yeah. Even
29:12
if it doesn't have the muscles there
29:15
to lift a leg, it could still
29:17
help to just have that weight weight.
29:19
So that covers theropod movements. I don't
29:21
think there's as much research on sorropod
29:23
movement, but there are still some interesting
29:26
studies. A lot of them involve scanning
29:28
fossils and making computer models and simulations
29:30
to figure out how they walked. One
29:32
study in 2017 found that Mussaurus, which
29:34
was our Dinosaur the Day in episode
29:37
220, It's a sorotomorph that lived in
29:39
the late Triassic and what's now Argentina.
29:41
And it was originally thought to be
29:43
small, but it turned out those were
29:45
based on juvenile skeletons. We now know
29:48
it could get much bigger. Anyway, it
29:50
moved on two legs. At least at
29:52
some points, right? Yes. The study found
29:54
that the palms of its front limbs
29:57
faced inwards and its arm joints couldn't
29:59
rotate downward. words. compared the They
30:01
compared the front limbs of crocodiles and and
30:03
reconstructed the musculoskeletal anatomy and
30:06
then compared the range of motion
30:08
of the arms. of the arms.
30:10
They looked at 30 muscles around the
30:12
shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints. wrist joints. And
30:14
it turns out that limb posture plays
30:16
a big role in muscle action, how the
30:18
muscles work. muscles work. Crocodiles have a
30:20
range of of closer to the,
30:22
quote, to the ancestral state for
30:24
state for arcosoria. I mean, they haven't
30:26
changed much. much. They They found
30:28
that Musaurus could maybe have some active
30:30
pronation of the hands, but the
30:32
muscles around the joint to actively pronate
30:35
may have been too weak. have been
30:37
too weak. Now based on on it
30:39
seems that sauropods moving to
30:41
all to was linked not only
30:43
to to Manus how their
30:45
hands were. hands but also by the by
30:47
limbs shifting into a more a
30:49
posture. posture. So they so they
30:51
had to be able to hold all that
30:53
weight. and that's easier and that's easier if
30:55
you put your legs under you. you. I mean, I guess the
30:58
I guess the alternative is whole just rest your
31:00
whole body on the ground and have them sprawled
31:02
out. But then if you're trying to cover a
31:04
lot of distance, a it's a little tricky. Yes. Then a
31:06
study in 2019 looked at the growth study in
31:08
2019 looked at the growth series of
31:10
mass over its to figure out how it
31:12
changed its movement over its lifetime. the day
31:14
in episode 40. It was a sore was our that
31:16
the day in 40. It was a
31:18
sauropodomorph that lived in the early
31:20
Jurassic in what's now Argentina. Argentina. And we
31:22
know them from hatchling, juvenile, and
31:24
mature specimens so you can compare a
31:26
growth series and see how it
31:28
changed over time. how it changed over I
31:30
love that. Then we have sort of
31:32
the have grave. the growth curve
31:35
of of mass of It's so rare. is
31:37
so rare. Yes. So for the study,
31:39
they compared body shape and locomotor
31:41
stance being on on four legs
31:43
versus two legs how it how it
31:45
changed over time from hatchling
31:47
to juvenile, about one year old,
31:49
to adults, which are over
31:51
eight years old. years old. They They found
31:54
bottle quickly, from about 60
31:56
grams or over two
31:58
ounces, to about seven. kilograms
32:00
or over 15 pounds just at one
32:03
year old, and then over a thousand
32:05
kilograms or 2,200 pounds as an adult.
32:07
And during this time, their body center
32:10
of mass shifted from mid-body to more
32:12
in the back, nearer to the hips.
32:14
So this helps show a shift from
32:17
being quadrupedal to bipedal, and it happens
32:19
early on. They found the development of
32:21
the tail and neck was more important
32:23
to in determining the soripodmor stance. There
32:26
was another study that reconstructed how soripods
32:28
walked based on studying their tracks. There
32:30
were three trackways, and they measured the
32:33
distance between them as well as figured
32:35
out if the print was from the
32:37
front or the back foot, as well
32:39
as the left or the right leg.
32:42
They found the soripod walked in a
32:44
diagonal couplet pattern, keeping one foot down
32:46
on each side, and it moved more
32:49
like a beaver or a hedgehog. Yeah,
32:51
I think that means front, left, back,
32:53
right, simultaneous. and then front, right, back,
32:56
left, simultaneous. Whereas a lot of other
32:58
animals sort of do them in a
33:00
rotation, where it's like front, left, front,
33:02
right, back, left, or vice versa. Yeah.
33:05
All the way around, especially the big
33:07
heavy animals. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so the
33:09
sorabods didn't move like giraffes, because giraffes
33:12
have either the left or right legs
33:14
hit the ground at once. Oh yeah,
33:16
that's the other one. You do the
33:19
both on the other one. But that
33:21
would have been too risky for a
33:23
soripod in case it fell down, because
33:25
it's such a large size. If it
33:28
fell, it would probably die. Although it's
33:30
possible that different soripods walk differently. Definitely.
33:32
Almost certainly. When you're talking about soripotomorps,
33:35
over 150 million years, they're not all
33:37
going to walk exactly the same. I
33:39
mean, even like you're talking about with
33:42
musaurus, they started out quadrupedal, switched to
33:44
bipedal. We don't think all soropods did
33:46
that. And then last but not least
33:48
are the ornithiscians, the bird-hyped herbivorous dinosaurs.
33:51
There's a lot of those with different
33:53
types of movement. Oh yeah, lots of
33:55
variety, because you've got things like ankylosaurus,
33:58
triceratops, pachycephalosaurus, and much more. All the
34:00
hadrosauroids. Mm-hmm. But a 2011 study found
34:02
that the earliest ornithiscians were small bipeds,
34:05
small and walked on two legs, and
34:07
they used their arms for grasping. And
34:09
that three ornithiscian lineages independently evolved to
34:11
grow large and walk on all fours.
34:14
But speaking of the bipeds, the two-legers,
34:16
two-legors. It's got to be a fun
34:18
nickname. Anyway, there was a 2013 study
34:21
of Satakasaurus that found it was mostly
34:23
bipedal as an adult. It shifted from
34:25
all fours to two. They studied 16
34:27
individuals from the Ishian formation in China.
34:30
Ten were juveniles, and the four limbs
34:32
and high limbs were close to the
34:34
same lengths as the hatchlings, but as
34:37
it got older, the limb lengths changed,
34:39
and it became bipedal. So it seems
34:41
like this shift happens sometime after its
34:44
third year based on histology. When it
34:46
was young, it's possible the Satagosaurs hatchlings
34:48
were mostly on all fours and ran
34:50
on two legs, and then adults were
34:53
only on all fours when moving very
34:55
slowly. But it seems there was at
34:57
least a limited shift in posture. So
35:00
maybe the hatchlings used their long arms
35:02
to help keep them stable, especially on
35:04
substrator when moving slowly. A 2023 study
35:07
looked at the range of motion of
35:09
four limbs in Styrachosaurus and Thecellosaurus. They
35:11
looked at the shoulder motion, orientation of
35:13
the humerus, the radius, the ulna, and
35:16
both had limited range of motion at
35:18
the shoulder. They found that Styrachosaurus, which
35:20
is a centrosaurine, was like other chasmosaurine
35:23
seratopsians, and moved with its elbows tucked
35:25
in at the sides, and it could
35:27
display its four limbs. It also was
35:30
very front heavy and walked on all
35:32
fours. For sure, you'd think most of
35:34
those seratopsians with the huge skulls would
35:36
be stuck on all fours because the
35:39
back legs are going to be on
35:41
the ground, the actual leg. historically for
35:43
dinosaurs. It's just just
35:46
a question of whether
35:48
or not the
35:50
front the slash arms
35:53
are off the ground,
35:55
off and if you've
35:57
got a skull
35:59
that's seven feet long
36:02
and weighs hundreds
36:04
of pounds, it's gonna
36:06
be hard to
36:09
keep that up off
36:11
the ground. You have to
36:13
support it ground. You have to support they had pretty
36:15
short tails had so there wasn't much of
36:17
a too, happening. much of a counterbalance
36:20
In the sprawling position, Styracosaurus
36:22
could raise and lower its torso
36:24
and head and then rock. So maybe it
36:26
it did that for some some head-shoving
36:28
and rock side -to -side, side to and
36:30
it could have moved in a
36:32
way for display. and then also for
36:34
the head a weapon. The Celsaurus on
36:37
the other on the other hand, had limited
36:39
humorous motion and couldn't swing the humorous
36:41
forward. forward. But its forelimbs or
36:43
or hands could contact the ground while
36:45
it stood. stood. It's unlikely that
36:47
cellosaur on all fours though fours though
36:49
because its the center or middle. the
36:52
center or middle. So there we we
36:54
have it. Dinosaur mating mating and dancing
36:56
and dinosaur movement in general.
36:58
So a lot of So a lot of
37:00
evidence, of a lot of different approaches
37:02
you can take on it on it
37:04
models of what the track ways tell
37:06
you in combination with the bones bones
37:08
to sort of logistical issues of just
37:11
how much different parts of the body
37:13
the body how much stress stress. a a -rex
37:15
leg could take while running. An actual
37:17
an actual direct evidence, like you were
37:19
saying, the the scrape marks. Oh, I hope there's
37:21
more more found marks the idea of
37:23
dinosaurs dancing Mm -hmm dancing.
37:25
We We will move to to our dinosaur of
37:28
the day, Day, in just a moment,
37:30
but first we're gonna take another quick break for our
37:32
sponsors. to take another quick break for our sponsors.
37:34
And now on to our now on
37:36
to our Day, of the Day, which was
37:38
a which was a request from 716
37:40
via our our Patreon and Discord. So
37:43
thanks. So thanks. It was was an
37:45
iguanodont or nithopod dinosaur that lived
37:47
in the in the early in what's
37:49
now England. what's now in the Isle of an Isle of
37:51
Wight. described as as
37:53
kangaroo -shaped. It walked on
37:55
two legs, it had shorter arms, a a
37:57
long tail, a a bulky body, and a small
37:59
head. And it's estimated to
38:01
be about 13 to 16 feet
38:04
or 4 to 5 meters long.
38:06
The holotype is the femora, the
38:09
upper leg bone, and it was
38:11
14 centimeters or 5 and a
38:13
half inches long. So it's estimated
38:16
that its body was 1.2 meters
38:18
or 3.9 feet long, and that
38:20
it weighed 10 kilograms or 22
38:23
pounds, but the holotypes of juvenile.
38:25
That is small. Maybe it should
38:28
be described as wallaby-sized rather than
38:30
kangaroo-sized. Maybe wallaroo. We don't know
38:32
how big an adult would have
38:35
been though. That's true. Valdesaurus is
38:37
considered to be a dryosaurid. Dryosaur
38:39
are iguanidons that lived in the
38:42
middle Jurassic to early Cretaceous and
38:44
what's now Africa, Europe, and North
38:47
America. And as a dryosaur that
38:49
means it would have had a
38:51
beak and probably been a fast
38:54
runner based on limb proportions and
38:56
muscle attachments. No skull of Valdesaurus
38:58
has been found but it probably
39:01
had a battery of teeth. The
39:03
type species is Valdysaurus canallocallatus. The
39:06
genus name Valdysaurus means strong in
39:08
Latin. It comes from the Latin
39:10
volus, wealden, which refers to the
39:13
wealden group where the fossils were
39:15
found. So the genus name weald
39:17
lizard. The species name, canallocallatus, means
39:20
with a small channel in Latin,
39:22
and it refers to a groove
39:25
in the thighbone. The Reverend William
39:27
Darwin Fox collected two small thigh
39:29
bones on the Isle of Wight,
39:32
and in 1868, suggested that they
39:34
came from the same individual, and
39:36
a guanodon found in 1848 by
39:39
Gideon Mantel that was renamed in
39:41
1869 as Hipsalafodon. Both femora or
39:44
thigh bones were referred to Hipsalafodon.
39:46
Then in 1975, Peter Galton named
39:48
the thigh bones as a new
39:51
species of Dryosaurus Canalicalatus. And then
39:53
in 1977, Galton named Valdesaurus based
39:55
on these two thigh bones. So
39:58
he changes his mind. In
40:00
In 1982, and and
40:02
Philippe described a
40:04
second species, species, Valdosaurus but
40:07
this is now considered to be
40:09
considered to be a razos. William William named
40:11
another species in
40:13
1998 as Valdesaurus
40:15
dextrapata, by including that name
40:17
in a list, but it turns out
40:19
that was an error there there was no
40:21
description of it, so a of it, so it's a
40:24
meaning it wasn't officially named, so.
40:27
don't bother using it. using it.
40:29
Yes. Being Being closely related
40:31
to Drysaurus, which was found in
40:33
the U in the US, led most dryosaurid
40:35
fossils found in Europe being referred
40:37
to to Voldosaurus. But in But in 2009,
40:39
Peter Galton reviewed the Valdesaurus material
40:41
and found no fossils from outside
40:43
England could definitively be referred to
40:46
Valdesaurus. And even the specimens found
40:48
in England, it was unclear if they
40:50
were all if they were all Voldosaurus. At
40:52
one point, there were some individuals
40:54
thought to be found in Romania
40:56
of Voldosaurus. There were about 3 ,000
40:59
disarticulated bones, bones, and and some of
41:01
them were small or nithopod bones,
41:03
and they thought those were those were valdicorous.
41:05
More More of all the SARS fossils, four
41:07
specimens to be exact, to were found in
41:09
2011 from the Isle of from which shows
41:11
it was more abundant than previously thought. abundant
41:14
than ,000 thought. they weren't
41:16
all those 3,000 bones, they weren't all
41:19
Maybe none of them were maybe none of them
41:21
were ha, ha. There was a
41:23
a skeleton found in 2012 by
41:25
Nick Chase, in 2016. It's the the most
41:27
complete one found so far. It
41:29
includes part of the part of almost
41:31
complete tail parts of the hips
41:33
and both legs. parts of the it's an
41:35
articulated skeleton from the mid an to
41:37
the tip of the tail, but it's
41:39
missing its front half, possibly eroded away. tail,
41:41
but it's missing its front half,
41:43
possibly got eroded for us
41:46
all. Yeah, I'll get you. Comes for us
41:48
all. Some other dinosaurs
41:50
that lived around the
41:52
same time and
41:54
place as place Voltosaurus include the
41:56
Tyrannosauraeotranes, Spinosaurs, Sorephods, and Ornithopods,
41:58
including Iguadon, Hipsalafidon, and metellosauris. And
42:01
other animals that lived around the
42:03
same time place include fish, turtles,
42:05
crocodilions, and terrors. And for our
42:07
fun fact, like I said at
42:09
the beginning of the episode, bony
42:11
ridges in soripod tail bones may
42:14
have helped them use their tails
42:16
as a weapon or to signal
42:18
to other soropods. There was a
42:20
2024 study that found bony ridges
42:22
in the neural canals of soropods,
42:24
as well as two Therapods, a
42:27
Thyryophoran and a thiophoranosaurin, and a
42:29
hadrosaur. A neural canal is a
42:31
space or system of spaces in
42:33
the vertebrae that forms the canal
42:35
of the spinal cord and the
42:37
spinal cord passes through the neural
42:40
canal tube. So it's related to
42:42
the nervous system and can tell
42:44
us a bit about an animal's
42:46
movement and behavior. Larger neural canals
42:48
can mean more nervous system tissue
42:50
in that area and if for
42:53
example there's more nervous system tissue
42:55
in the arms, that can mean
42:57
the animal used its arms more
42:59
compared to animals with less nervous
43:01
system tissue in the arms. Yeah,
43:03
if you're having a difficult time
43:06
imagining where the neural canal is
43:08
it's basically in our vertebrae We've
43:10
got the round part with the
43:12
disks that some people call them
43:14
where you'll feel like slip a
43:16
disc That's what's shifting. That's what
43:19
the cartilage is in between and
43:21
all that and then there's the
43:23
neural arch that on us is
43:25
facing outwards from our back on
43:27
dinosaurs that faced up and in
43:30
between those two there's a gap
43:32
And in younger dinosaurs, those two
43:34
bones aren't fused yet, but in
43:36
older dinosaurs, just like in older
43:38
humans, those fused completely together, making
43:40
an actual canal, like covered in
43:43
solid bone on all sides. Yes.
43:45
So you're saying that there's bony
43:47
ridges in those canals? Yes, and
43:49
the authors started this study because
43:51
back in 2020, the scientists who
43:53
described the soripod... Abderainarus found bony
43:56
ridges and suggested that they were
43:58
neurocannal ridges in the tailbones. So
44:00
they they looked
44:02
at a bunch
44:05
of dinosaurs, cedisaurus,
44:07
haplicanthosaurus, apatosaurus, depotiscus, camarosaurs, rachiosaurus,
44:10
to name a few of the sauropods,
44:12
but then there was also a few of
44:14
the sauropods, but then there was also and an indeterminate
44:18
covering all the dinosaurs. Yeah.
44:21
They found that the bony ridges were
44:23
only in the They found the caudal
44:25
vertebrae and that long and they vary
44:27
in size and position. Similar
44:29
bony ridges have been found in
44:31
some modern modern ray fin fish, lung fish,
44:33
and amphibians, and and they're known
44:35
to be bony spinal cord supports.
44:37
So it's So it's unclear what
44:39
the dinosaurs were using these bony ridges
44:42
for. But in it maybe it
44:44
helped keep the spinal cord stable while
44:46
moving the tail, tail, especially as a
44:48
weapon or for signaling to other sauropods.
44:50
soropods. With With all of these dinosaurs,
44:52
the the are anchored to to paired cottofemoralis
44:54
muscles that retracted the thigh thigh
44:56
while walking and running. running. So
44:59
maybe the stresses on the tail
45:01
from moving were enough that it
45:03
needed these spinal cord these spinal cord Or
45:05
maybe they were for, what did you
45:07
for, what did you say, display? Or weaponry?
45:09
Or yeah. yeah. But in any
45:11
any event it would be an
45:13
anchoring point for those things, not
45:15
that the dinosaurs could see the
45:17
small bit of bone deep inside
45:20
the neural canal of another dinosaur's
45:22
tail. True. True. True, true.
45:24
And And that wraps up this
45:26
episode of Einodino. Thank you so much
45:28
for listening. If If you wanna keep
45:30
up with weekly content, we do have
45:32
a newsletter that's going, a even while
45:35
we're out for parental leave. You
45:37
can sign up at inodino.com. You can sign
45:39
tuned. Next episode, we're going to have
45:41
an interview with Next episode, we're bird have an
45:43
of the day. with Dean Lomax,
45:46
plus our Sounds very of
45:48
the day. like an
45:50
aristocrat. It does. like an for
45:52
listening and until next time.
45:55
and until next time.
46:03
Before you go, one last
46:05
reminder that we're about to mail
46:07
out our out our limited edition to all
46:09
of our all at the at the tier
46:11
and above. and above. And if
46:13
we reach 400 patrons by
46:15
the end of February 28,
46:18
2025, we're then we're also going
46:20
to send everyone a Parasaurolophus
46:22
and and Styracosaurus with the the Allosaurus
46:24
Patch. If you If you wanna help us
46:26
reach our goal goal also help us
46:28
continue to make the podcast, the
46:30
please head over to.com slash slash I know
46:32
Again, that's patreon.com slash inodino and
46:34
a huge thank you to everyone
46:36
who joins and has joined. has joined.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More