0:07

Hello and welcome to I Know Dino. Keep

0:09

up with the latest dinosaur discoveries and science with

0:11

us. I'm Garrett. And I'm

0:13

Sabrina. And today in our 518th

0:15

episode, we've got a bunch of news. So

0:21

many new dinosaurs. There's a new

0:23

sauropod with a feature that might

0:26

unlock sexual dimorphism. There's

0:28

a new ornithopod with wide strong feet,

0:30

new and anti-ornithine birds that were like

0:32

today's birds of prey. Plus

0:35

we've got another sauropod with a tail club.

0:37

Oh nice. Yes. And

0:40

we've got a couple articles

0:42

we're expecting to see at SVP, although

0:44

they've also been published elsewhere, which is

0:47

why we can talk about them, which

0:49

includes a new spinosaur as

0:51

well as one

0:54

of people's favorite dinosaurs

0:56

maybe being a nomandubium.

0:59

Oh no. Yeah. SVP

1:01

is a quick reminder to our listeners that

1:03

stands for Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and

1:06

they will be meeting very, very soon.

1:08

So there will be a lot of

1:10

stuff coming out that unfortunately it's

1:12

going to have to wait on our show a little bit. Well,

1:15

as of the release of this episode, SVP

1:17

will have already started because I think it

1:19

starts on Wednesday when this episode will come

1:21

out. Oh, good point. But a lot of

1:24

the dinosaur talks aren't until Friday and Saturday.

1:26

Yes. But this is our

1:28

last episode before we go on parental leave

1:30

for a little bit because

1:32

we are expecting our second baby

1:35

very, very soon. Any moment now.

1:39

So we have, don't worry though, we recorded

1:41

episodes in advance so you'll still get your

1:43

dino fix. And when

1:45

we come back, we will be catching up on all

1:47

of the news. Yeah. And

1:50

last time we went on parental leave actually, a lot

1:52

of those episodes were more popular than the

1:54

ones that had news, maybe because

1:56

we put a little more time into

1:59

getting a coat cohesive theme around the

2:01

episode. It tells a little bit more

2:03

of a story arc to it. So

2:05

I think they'll still be very enjoyable

2:07

episodes, and hopefully you all enjoy those.

2:09

But in this episode we also

2:11

have a dinosaur of the day. Yes, Dilophosaurus,

2:13

which we're revisiting. That's the crested dinosaur

2:16

that was made famous in Jurassic Park,

2:18

though it didn't spit venom in real

2:20

life. And also we don't think had

2:22

a big umbrella frill. Yes. Or

2:25

spitting cobra frill. And

2:27

our fun fact for this episode is

2:29

that ants farmed fungus in the late

2:31

Cretaceous. It's a bit of

2:34

a tongue twister. Ants farmed fungus. Yeah. Ants

2:36

farmed fungus. Ants farmed fungus.

2:38

That's true. But before we

2:40

get into all of that, as always, we'd

2:42

like to thank some of our patrons. And

2:44

this week we have 10 patrons to thank.

2:46

They are BinderClipChick, Yedit, Matthew,

2:49

Fergus, Keith, Scott,

2:52

Reed, Randy and Squim, SarasaurusRex,

2:55

and Linda. Thank

2:58

you so much, everybody. Yeah, like we were

3:00

just talking about. We're going on parental leave

3:02

soon, so we're going to be switching to

3:04

bi-weekly, probably temporarily. But

3:06

if you want more frequent content,

3:08

please consider signing up for our

3:11

Patreon, patreon.com. I know, I know.

3:13

Yes, we have a lot of stuff scheduled to

3:16

go out over the coming months. And

3:18

if you sign up, you may not get

3:20

a shout out immediately if you're at a

3:22

shout out tier, because we have, as we

3:24

said, pre-recorded some episodes. But we

3:26

will definitely be shouting you out when we get back

3:29

from our parental leave. Yes. Also,

3:32

we'll be sending out our exclusive gift

3:34

to our Spinosaurus patrons soon. So be

3:36

on the lookout for an Allosaurus metal

3:38

print, a signed copy of our book,

3:40

Keep Your Dinosaurs Here, and a special

3:43

iNoDino pen. By the time this

3:45

episode's aired, we will probably have posted

3:47

a picture of what to expect on our Patreon, so you

3:49

can take a look. And I just

3:51

want to thank our Spinosaurus patrons and all of

3:53

our patrons so much for your support. You're

3:56

amazing. And for our Spinosaurus patrons, I hope you

3:58

enjoy this year's gift. Yes, and

4:01

I think we have an extra one or two,

4:03

so you could sign up at the Spinosaurus level

4:06

if you would like, and we'll send it to you

4:08

too. Mm-hmm. So

4:10

jumping into the news, I'm gonna kick

4:12

it off with the SVP abstracts. I

4:14

see. Well, those are making a

4:16

lot of waves. I

4:19

wanna say memes really more than

4:21

anything. They're making the rounds. Yeah,

4:23

on the dinosaur sub-reads. Surprisingly,

4:25

the Spinosaurus one got less attention

4:27

than the other article. The

4:31

other one is about Surophaganax, also

4:33

known as the really big Allosaurus. But

4:36

like we said, SVP should be

4:38

underway by the time this episode

4:40

starts. Unfortunately, this is gonna

4:42

be the first SVP we're missing

4:44

in the nine years since we

4:47

started going to SVP, which

4:49

is a bit of a bummer. Unfortunately,

4:51

doctors don't recommend flying when you're nine

4:53

months pregnant, and I don't

4:55

wanna miss the birth of our child,

4:57

so neither of us can make it

4:59

this year. Yeah, and as far as I know,

5:01

if there's a virtual component, it

5:04

won't be until maybe next

5:06

year. Yeah, yeah, they're not doing virtual this

5:08

year. Otherwise, we would do virtual like we did

5:10

last time. And it's also a

5:12

bummer because it's in Minneapolis where I have a

5:14

bunch of family, and it would have been very

5:16

nice to visit family, go to SVP around

5:19

the holidays. Years ago, when we

5:21

found out it was gonna be in Minneapolis, I was like,

5:23

yes, that's the perfect place. And then

5:26

the timing of pregnancy just didn't work

5:28

out with it. But

5:30

if you're in the Minneapolis area or you

5:32

ever find yourself in that area, they do

5:34

have a very good dinosaur museum, and I

5:37

highly recommend visiting it if you're ever there.

5:40

But since we're gonna be on parental leave, I

5:42

figured we'd talk about the two subjects that are

5:44

already getting a lot of interest rather than waiting

5:46

months until we're back. Both

5:48

of these have been published elsewhere, like

5:50

I already mentioned, so I'm not- You're

5:53

not sharing anything you're not supposed to be sharing?

5:55

Yes. So

5:57

I'm gonna start with the quote unquote, scimitar crepe.

6:00

spinosaurus first. So

6:03

back in January 2023, Paul

6:05

Cyrano wrote an article for

6:08

the Chicago Tribune about

6:10

a new spinosaurus discovery in Niger,

6:12

which we somehow missed. Oops. We

6:14

don't subscribe to the Chicago Tribune,

6:16

so that could be why. And

6:18

a lot of our mailing lists

6:20

focus on peer-reviewed articles. This was

6:22

just an article by Paul

6:24

Cyrano after he went on the trip. But

6:27

in any case, now that

6:29

the abstract has been accepted by SVP,

6:31

I think it's a little more fleshed

6:34

out and a little more maybe

6:37

to be taken seriously in

6:39

terms of its scientific rigors. So

6:42

what happened is when Cyrano and his

6:44

team got to Niger, a guide showed

6:47

them some pieces of a spinosaurid, specifically

6:49

pieces of a jaw. Nice. And

6:52

then they went into the field

6:54

to find more of the dinosaur

6:56

and they found the top of

6:58

its skull, which they describe as,

7:01

quote, a long, scimitar-shaped display crest

7:03

projected upward, definitive evidence that we

7:05

had found a new species with

7:07

a startlingly new profile, end quote.

7:09

And a scimitar, or a scimitar,

7:13

which is apparently the preferred

7:15

pronunciation, news to me, is

7:17

a long-curved sword that you

7:20

find in the region. In

7:22

addition to the skull, they

7:24

also found, quote, pointed fish-eating

7:26

teeth, sections of the

7:28

tall back spines, and

7:31

other bones, end quote. So tall back

7:33

spines, I think, is

7:35

why they are referring it to spinosaurus

7:37

and not making it just a spinosaurid.

7:40

Makes sense. Because

7:42

spinosaurus, of course, has the

7:44

largest, most impressive sail

7:46

on its back. A

7:49

picture of the skull has, quote, unquote,

7:51

leaked, although I kind of wonder if

7:53

it was originally published with a Chicago

7:55

Tribune article because it has some broken

7:57

image links in the article. got

8:00

hacked and as a result

8:02

I can't check the original version

8:04

of this article to see if the pictures

8:06

were included with it but as

8:09

flawed design pointed out in our

8:11

discord it looks a lot like

8:13

cryolophosaurus. Oh interesting. It sort of

8:15

has that pompadour like head crest

8:18

or as they put it a scimitar

8:20

portion of the skull that

8:23

definitely sounds fancier than a

8:25

pompadour like an Elvis impersonator.

8:29

But I think the most interesting thing

8:31

to me at least is that they're

8:33

calling it a species of spinosaurus and

8:35

not a new genus since it was

8:37

found in Niger and not Morocco or

8:39

Egypt where the existing

8:41

spinosaurus material has

8:43

been named from and it may

8:46

also be a little bit later based on the formation it was

8:48

found in because spinosaurus is usually closer

8:50

to a hundred million years this might be

8:52

closer to 90 billion years according to the

8:54

original article so I think that's

8:56

interesting. The spinosaurid

8:58

Succimimus was also found in Niger

9:00

from about 110 to

9:03

120 million years ago before so

9:05

this isn't the first spinosaurid material

9:07

from Niger. You

9:09

should check out the pictures of this spinosaurus because

9:11

it has a very big crest

9:14

on its head bigger than cryolophosaurus even

9:17

but sort of in the same spot. It would be

9:19

interesting to see if they draw any

9:22

conclusions about the relationships

9:24

between spinosaurus and cryolophosaurus based

9:26

on this crest. I

9:28

doubt it. It doesn't seem at

9:31

all related but I guess

9:33

they could. They also

9:35

mentioned in that first article meaning

9:37

the one in the Chicago Tribune that

9:40

there is a skull of a

9:42

Carcarradontosaur in the area as well

9:45

and also a fish that looks

9:47

like a freshwater alligator gar and

9:49

was likely over 10 feet long

9:52

so presumably it's from a river ecosystem.

9:54

Do we have another Stromer's Riddle brewing in

9:56

this area? I mean it's basically the same

9:59

place. So it would be

10:01

the same stromer's riddle, I

10:03

think. But

10:05

last but not least, they found a Titanosaur.

10:08

He mentions a six foot femur

10:10

and quote unquote gigantic vertebrae, which

10:12

would put it in the same

10:14

scale as the largest sauropods and

10:16

therefore the largest animals ever to

10:18

walk the earth, which is

10:20

pretty cool. I would love to get an estimate

10:22

of how large they think it is. Yeah, I

10:26

think it might be a Robocci sword just based on

10:28

it being from that time. And

10:30

from Niger and a Titanosaur, but

10:33

we'll have to see. So that's

10:35

the first one that was making a lot of people

10:39

get excited. It is

10:41

exciting. It is, but

10:43

it's sort of been around and known about for a couple

10:45

of years. Whereas the

10:47

newer one about the

10:50

validity of sauropheganax has

10:53

been making all sorts of memes happen about,

10:56

you know, like, oh, we thought sauropheganax might

10:58

not be real cause it was just an

11:00

allosaurus. And now it turns out it's actually

11:02

a sauropod. What is going

11:04

on? That's a very different

11:06

direction. Yes, which I think

11:09

just threw a lot of people off and that's

11:11

why memes happened. It

11:13

also resulted in one of the most fitting

11:15

posts on sauropod vertebra picture of the week

11:18

in a while, because

11:20

Matt Waitel wrote a post

11:23

explaining that he believes the

11:25

vertebrae included in the saurophaganax

11:27

holotype are not from

11:29

an allosauroid or allosaurid

11:31

even, but from a sauropod.

11:34

So they were in fact, sauropod vertebrae.

11:36

And he has pictures of them this

11:39

week on his blog. Sorepod

11:41

vertebrae picture of the week. So

11:44

a lot of the memes on this sort

11:46

of tell a story

11:48

of saurophaganax actually being some

11:51

ferocious sauropod, but

11:53

that is unfortunately not the story at all.

11:55

As cool as it would be if there

11:58

was a late Jurassic. carnivorous,

12:00

sauropodomorph, much like their

12:03

Triassic ancestors, that somehow

12:05

survived on a ghost

12:07

lineage for 50 plus

12:10

million years and evolved

12:12

into something bigger than Allosaurus, but

12:15

very similar to Allosaurus. That would

12:17

be super cool. But instead, this

12:19

is probably a case of multiple

12:21

species of dinosaurs being accidentally combined

12:24

together into a single specimen and

12:26

then named as a holotype together.

12:28

So an accidental chimera. Yeah, yeah,

12:30

those are called chimera. They

12:33

said, quote, in our estimation, the

12:35

axial elements used to

12:37

diagnose saurophaganax, including the holotype,

12:39

belong to one or more

12:42

sauropods. If you disagree,

12:44

that's cool. I'm not going to engage

12:46

in any skirmishes right now when our

12:48

battleship will be in range shortly. That

12:50

was obviously in the blog. They're

12:53

getting ready. Yeah. And

12:56

basically saying, like, I'm gonna present the whole

12:58

case and then you can shoot me down.

13:01

I do need to point out, though,

13:03

just like when Brontosaurus was considered a

13:05

synonym of Apatosaurus, the bones didn't cease

13:08

to exist. And as

13:10

Waitel put it, quote, that still

13:12

leaves a big pile of material

13:14

from a really big Allosaurid, end

13:16

quote. So yes, the

13:18

vertebrae are likely from a sauropod,

13:20

at least according to Waitel and

13:22

his co-authors, but he's

13:25

not saying that the huge claw

13:27

that was found with it or

13:29

any of the other obvious carnivorous

13:31

theropod type material is from

13:33

a sauropod. He's saying that's probably

13:35

still from a big Allosaurid. Mm-hmm.

13:38

But who cares? We're talking about the sauropod

13:40

now. I guess. So

13:44

interestingly, I went back to

13:46

the first literature on saurophagus,

13:49

which was the original name, but it

13:51

was preoccupied, so it was later changed

13:53

to saurophaganax. Sorephagus was first

13:56

informally named in 1941 in a magazine So

16:00

being 25% larger is

16:03

pretty cool, and also Allosaurus is very

16:05

popular, so naming a larger version of

16:07

Allosaurus is also really neat. But

16:10

he pointed out that size isn't enough to

16:12

name a new genus. Fortunately,

16:14

he found three unique features in

16:16

the bones, which would justify naming

16:18

a new genus. But

16:21

all three of those features are in

16:23

the vertebrae, and one of

16:25

them is a quote, feature unique among

16:27

theropods and quote, possibly because

16:29

it's not a theropod. Because

16:33

the vertebrae belongs to a sauropod? Potentially,

16:36

yes. But I will say

16:38

two of the other features look similar

16:40

to vertebrae in Tyrannosaurids, so it isn't

16:42

just like, oh, we have these vertebrae

16:44

that look nothing like we've ever seen

16:46

in a theropod before, and therefore, when

16:49

combined with these other obvious theropod bones,

16:52

we must be a new theropod.

16:54

It's not that much of an

16:57

obvious mistake where you took these

16:59

obvious sauropod vertebrae and these obvious

17:01

theropod teeth and claws and said,

17:03

wow, that's a funny combination, knowing

17:07

that you don't have a picture of where they

17:09

all came from. Instead, some

17:11

of them look like Tyrannosaurid features, so

17:13

it's not completely unreasonable to think, oh,

17:16

this is just a new theropod vertebra.

17:19

But back to Weidl's blog, he

17:21

said, quote, we, the same author

17:23

team from the abstract, have a

17:25

long lavishly illustrated paper in revision

17:28

at an open-access journal. The paper

17:30

goes into far more detail and

17:32

with all the evidence we could

17:34

bring to bear on the identity

17:36

of the type and referred material

17:39

of saurophaganax, and it will be

17:41

freely available to the world once

17:43

it's published. End quote. Nice.

17:46

And we will read it at some point once it's published. And

17:50

talk about it as soon as we can. Although

17:53

with the speed of publication, it might

17:55

not get published until after we're back

17:57

from parental leave. And

17:59

we'll get into it. into our new dinosaurs in just

18:01

a moment, but first we're gonna pause for a quick

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sponsor break. Hey,

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podcast. That's amazon.com/ad-free podcast to catch

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19:18

Well, this worked out nicely because

19:21

we can just jump

19:23

right into our first new dinosaur,

19:25

which is a new sauropod. Another

19:29

new sauropod? Keep this sauropod

19:31

train going. Actually, the saurophaganax

19:33

maybe sauropod might not

19:35

be new because it might just

19:38

be an existing sauropod that's already known

19:40

from the ecosystem. We're still talking about

19:42

sauropods. It's true. So yes,

19:44

there's a new sauropod dinosaur, Ardentosaurus

19:47

vietor. This was

19:49

published by Tom van der Linden and

19:51

others in Paleontologia Electronica.

19:54

It's open access. So

19:56

we're keeping our open access theme going too. This

19:59

sauropod. PCs

26:00

of Mementosaurus and now Cotesaurus. And

26:03

I feel like at least one of those is a

26:05

little bit more of an inference. Like

26:08

we don't have a great tail club from all of

26:10

them either. The

26:12

Shunosaurus though is a good one. That is the

26:14

best one, or at least the one

26:17

that I think of. The

26:19

Omeosaurus, I saw a picture of it and it's

26:21

pretty good too. So maybe we're thinking of Mementosaurus

26:24

because that one wasn't in the paper as much.

26:27

What they did was they compared tail clubs and

26:30

it seems that they're made up of three

26:32

elements that fuse together in adulthood. And

26:35

Cotesaurus had a tail club similar to tail

26:37

clubs of two sauropods that were found in

26:39

China, Shunosaurus and Omeosaurus. Cotesaurus

26:42

is the first example of a sauropod tail club

26:44

found outside of China though, since it was found

26:46

in India. The

26:48

fossils of Cotesaurus were found in the 1970s. There's

26:51

at least 12 individuals from different life stages

26:54

and four of those specimens had tail clubs. Oh, wow.

26:56

And they were found in the 70s and we're just

26:58

finding out about them now? I

27:00

guess maybe people weren't looking at the tails as much. These

27:04

clubs had an ellipsoidal shape, kind

27:06

of like a squashed sphere. That's

27:08

how I would describe the Shunosaurus one too. They're

27:11

also rugose or rough on

27:13

the texture on the surface and

27:16

they're made of those three elements or structures.

27:18

Yeah, I always think they look kind of like a big potato. Like

27:21

big sort of dents in it. That's

27:24

not what I would think of. Okay,

27:27

I could see that. The tail

27:30

clubs are also different sizes. Seems like they're linked

27:32

to the age of the specimen where the older

27:34

ones had bigger clubs. Just

27:36

a quick note, the authors mentioned growth

27:38

lines in the tail clubs, but there

27:41

was some debate on the dinosaur mailing

27:43

list about whether those are growth lines

27:45

or diagenetic alteration, where things changed in

27:47

the sediments from fossilization because the tools

27:49

that were used on the

27:52

dinosaur mailing list, they said that the scan was

27:54

too coarse to capture growth lines. Hmm. But

27:57

still, my main takeaway was... tail

27:59

clubs on a sauropod. Yeah, that's very cool.

28:01

And it's cool that they have different life

28:04

stages too, because there's always

28:06

that question of when did they get the

28:08

tail club? Was it just on the adults

28:10

for competing for mates or fighting

28:12

off predators or whatever? Or

28:15

is it on the juveniles and how did

28:17

that shape and size change over time? That's

28:20

very cool. It is a

28:22

hope more sauropods are later known to have tail

28:24

clubs. Yeah, and it sounds like we could use

28:26

some more research on these ones too or some

28:28

higher quality scans and things. All

28:31

right, back to the new dinosaurs. Had

28:34

to mention the sauropod stuff first. There

28:37

is a new ornithopod dinosaur, Amelia

28:41

Sora Alessandri. This

28:43

was published in Cretaceous Research by R.A. Corey

28:45

and others. And there

28:47

are a lot of accolades that

28:50

go with this one. Accolades might be

28:52

too lofty of a word, but

28:54

it's the first recognized rhabdodontoid ornithopod

28:56

from South America. Rhabdodontoids

28:59

are herbivorous dinosaurs. They're known for

29:01

their spade-shaped teeth as well as

29:03

uniquely shaped femur humerus and ulna

29:05

or thigh bone and arm bones.

29:08

Think xelmoxis from prehistoric planet

29:10

for thinking rhabdodontids. Or

29:12

rhabdodon. Yes, but this

29:15

new one, Amelia Sora, is

29:17

also the oldest, most basal

29:19

rhabdodontoid and the earliest

29:21

Cretaceous ornithischian from Patagonia. Those

29:24

are its accolades? Yes. Claims to

29:26

fame? Yes. And

29:29

it helps show the early evolution of

29:31

the rhabdodontomorphs in that it's

29:33

more complex than we previously thought. So

29:36

Amelia Sora was kind of

29:38

bulky, walked on two legs, had a long

29:40

tail, long arms, a small head. It

29:43

was medium-sized, estimated

29:45

to be about 16 feet or five

29:47

meters long. That's a rough estimate based

29:49

on one of the figures in the paper. It

29:52

lived in the early Cretaceous and what is

29:54

now New Ken Province, Argentina, in

29:57

the Molichinko Formation. The fossils

29:59

were found in... In 2009, the

30:01

genus name Amelia Sora

30:03

means Amelia's lizard and

30:05

it's in honor of Amelia Grandma Ondetia

30:08

de Fuchs, founder of the first

30:10

museum in Las La Jaz, and

30:14

quote, pioneer in the recovery of the local

30:16

history. That's why she's known as Grandma? Could

30:19

be, I couldn't find an explanation

30:21

on Grandma. It's just like, she's called Grandma, that's

30:23

all you need to know. And

30:26

then the species name Alessandra is

30:28

in honor of Carlos Alessandri, who

30:31

found the fossils. Partial skeletons

30:33

of two individuals were found and

30:36

they include parts of the shoulder, arms, legs, hips

30:38

and tail bones. And it had unique features in

30:40

the hips, legs and feet. And like I mentioned

30:43

in the beginning of the show, it had wide,

30:45

strong feet. Based on

30:47

histology, the specimens were both sub-adults

30:49

and still actively growing. The

30:52

bones, however, were too delicate to count lags, so

30:54

they don't have a estimate of

30:56

their exact ages. And

30:58

some other dinosaurs that lived around the same

31:00

time and place include sauropods like Pylmatuia and

31:03

Carcarradontosaurids like La Hasvenidor.

31:07

So that brings me to our next news

31:10

item, which also has to do with

31:12

ornithopods. I

31:16

see what you think of ornithopods, that you're sticking

31:18

the ornithopods way at the end. Well,

31:20

no, I had a theme going, because first we

31:23

talked about the new sauropod, and then we talked

31:25

about sauropod tails. Then we talk

31:27

about the new ornithopod, and now we have a

31:29

new ornithopod research paper to go with it. Okay,

31:31

I gotcha. The enantiornithines are

31:33

actually the last ones. Oh, that makes sense.

31:37

Anyway, by

31:39

the end of the Cretaceous, ornithopod dinosaurs

31:42

had evolved teeth that made them very

31:44

successful plant eaters. We

31:46

talk about that a fair amount, but this

31:48

paper dove into what made

31:50

them so successful. This was published

31:52

by Attila O.C. and others in

31:54

Nature Communications and its open access.

31:57

And the team, they looked at tooth

31:59

formation time. tooth replacement rates and

32:01

daily tooth wear rates of 16 types

32:03

of ornithopods. Ornithopods

32:06

of course include dinosaurs like Iguanodon, but

32:08

then you've got the Hadrosaurs. Those are

32:10

the ones known for being the cows

32:12

of the Cretaceous and having those dental

32:14

batteries. Yeah, and wearing down their teeth

32:16

pretty quickly presumably. Yes. In

32:18

this paper they found the average tooth wore away

32:21

in less than two months. Also

32:24

that teeth and jaws changed a lot

32:26

as ornithopods evolved. And

32:28

early ones like Iguanodon took more than 200 days

32:30

to form their teeth. Hadrosaurs

32:32

by the end of the Cretaceous though could wear through their

32:34

teeth in something like 50 days. They

32:37

probably ate tough plants so they needed the new teeth more.

32:40

There's some fast tooth wear. Yes.

32:44

Hadrosaurs also had more teeth.

32:46

They also had ridges behind the teeth and

32:48

blade-like edges on one side and they ground

32:50

the upper and lower teeth together to keep

32:52

them sharp. We do see

32:54

some similar changes in Ceratopsians like Triceratops which

32:56

had more teeth, more replacement teeth and were

32:59

more efficient at eating plants as well. But

33:02

later ornithopods could also slide their jaws back

33:04

and forth and side to side so they

33:06

could grind plants down better. They

33:09

also had larger bodies which meant they had

33:11

larger guts to digest that plant matter. Before

33:14

the Cretaceous, ornithopod teeth had large pits so it

33:16

could be they were eating a lot of plant

33:18

seeds as well as dust and soil because they

33:20

were eating close to the ground. But

33:23

then later they had fewer pits and more scratches so

33:25

it could be that they were eating tougher plants or

33:27

eating in a different way. They

33:29

learned to stop eating dirt. I guess. And

33:33

they didn't go for the seeds as much. Now

33:36

angiosperms or flowering plants started diversifying

33:38

around the end, well

33:40

the end for non-avian dinosaurs in the

33:43

Cretaceous, but horsetails,

33:45

ferns and conifers were still more common

33:47

so it's really hard to prove a

33:49

link between the changes in flowering plants,

33:51

the changes in the dinosaur teeth that is. But

33:54

good for those ornithopods, they found their niche

33:56

and they expanded into it. Mm-hmm, and

33:59

good for them. ankle

36:00

and toes. And avosaurus the

36:02

name means bird lizard, which is pretty

36:05

funny. Yeah, sort of a leg

36:07

foot bone. That's what

36:09

a tarsometatarsus is. Yeah, it's

36:11

a foot bone between the ankle and toes. And

36:14

avosaurus the name means bird lizard, which is

36:17

pretty funny. Kind

36:19

of surprised that one hasn't been used yet, because there are so

36:22

many lizardy birds out there,

36:24

or dinosaury birds. Well,

36:26

it was used because the type species

36:29

avosaurus archibaldi was named in 1985. Oh,

36:32

okay. Based on a tarsometatarsus. So

36:34

the Darwini part is the new

36:36

part. Yeah, new species, not new

36:38

genus. Another reason why this

36:41

is one of the later news items

36:43

for us. It might not

36:45

normally be, but since we're packing in all the

36:47

new dinosaurs that we can, here

36:49

we are. So avosaurus Darwini,

36:52

the specimen is about the size of a

36:54

large hawk, and it's got a wingspan

36:56

estimated to be about 1.3 meters or

36:58

4.3 feet. And

37:00

it's estimated to weigh up to 3.7 pounds or

37:02

1.6 kilograms. That's

37:07

sort of big. Big for an

37:09

anti ornithine, I think. Oh, true. Not

37:11

big for a bird of prey though.

37:14

The other specimen is an unnamed species

37:16

of avosaurus. They found

37:18

a partial right tarsometatarsus, and

37:20

they know it was different, but they just weren't

37:22

ready to give it a name. It's

37:24

only part of one bone, so I can

37:27

see why they chose that. Well,

37:29

as in antiornithines, in antiornithines aren't an

37:31

ancestor of modern birds, but they did

37:33

evolve the same traits, it turns out,

37:36

as modern raptors, at least these ones

37:38

did. And before, the oldest

37:40

known birds of prey were from the beginning

37:42

of the Cenozoic, which is that period after

37:44

the non-avian dinosaurs died out. We

37:46

do need more fossils to get a better sense of

37:48

what these two specimens looked like, like if they had

37:51

teeth or hooked beaks, for example, because again, we

37:53

really only know about one foot. Yeah. But

37:57

we do know a lot from those foot bones. Marsh

46:00

and Timothy Rowe. Delaphosaurus

46:02

was a theropod that lived in the early

46:04

Jurassic in what's now Arizona in the US,

46:06

the Cayenne deformation. As a theropod,

46:08

it walked on two legs, it had a long

46:11

tail, long arms, sharp teeth. And

46:13

the thing that sets it apart is the two crests on its

46:15

head. Thus the Delaphosaurus.

46:18

Yes. It was also much

46:21

larger than how it was depicted in Jurassic Park,

46:23

and like you said earlier, Garrett, it didn't have that frill.

46:26

That is, I think, the only example I

46:28

know of, a dinosaur that was bigger in

46:30

real life than it was in Jurassic Park.

46:33

Usually the Jurassic Park dinosaurs are like 50% bigger

46:36

than they were in real life, but not Delaphosaurus.

46:39

The real one is like two to three

46:41

times as big. Yes. Although

46:43

it could have been a baby, I suppose. Could be a baby,

46:45

yeah. Got big display structures

46:47

for a baby if that's the case in Jurassic Park.

46:50

But even without the frill in real

46:52

life, Delaphosaurus did look fierce. It

46:55

was slender and lightly built, estimated

46:58

to be about 23 feet or

47:00

seven meters long and weigh about 880 pounds or 400

47:02

kilograms. So

47:05

way too big to be in that front seat

47:07

of Nedry's car. Yeah, too big

47:09

to fit in anything except for like a school

47:12

bus, basically. There

47:14

was a histology study in 1996 that

47:17

found that Delaphosaurus grew 66 to 77 pounds or

47:21

30 to 35 kilograms per year early on.

47:24

It had a woven structure in its bones that showed that

47:26

it grew quickly. So again, it

47:28

walked on two legs and it was active. It

47:30

had powerful arms and four fingers on each

47:32

hand with a large claw on its first

47:34

fingers. There were smaller claws on

47:37

the middle fingers and a vestigial fourth finger. It

47:40

had large thigh bones, stout feet and large

47:42

claws on the toes. It kept

47:44

its first toe, the hallux, off the ground. Third

47:46

toe was the stoutest one. It

47:49

had hollow, light vertebrae, a long

47:51

flexible neck, a large delicate skull

47:53

and a narrow snout. And

47:56

of course it had the pair of arched crests on

47:58

its skull that were probably covered in. strong

50:00

bite, so it could use those to subdue

50:02

prey. And then the stress on the jaws

50:04

was consistent with struggling small prey. So

50:07

maybe it slashed prey to wound it and then

50:09

captured the prey in the front of its jaws.

50:12

And then the prey may have moved to the back of the

50:14

jaws where the largest teeth were and they were killed by the

50:16

slicing bites. In

50:18

2007, Milner and Kirkland suggested Dilophosaurus

50:20

ate fish based on the ends

50:22

of the jaws that formed this

50:25

rosette of interlocking teeth, similar to

50:27

Spinosaurids, which we think eat fish.

50:30

Both Dilophosaurus and Spinosaurus had long arms

50:32

and well-developed claws which could help them

50:34

catch fish, and nasal openings

50:36

that were retracted which might have helped keep water

50:38

out while fishing. In

50:40

1990, Steven and Sylvia Serkis

50:43

suggested Dilophosaurus had an aquatic

50:45

lifestyle with a weak pelvis that

50:47

needed the water to help support its weight, though

50:50

they didn't think it only lived in

50:52

water. Interesting. I think they're in the

50:54

minority. Yeah. The old

50:56

sauropods need to live in water

50:58

comes to mind. Yeah. Marsh

51:01

and Row in 2020 suggested that Dilophosaurus could

51:03

prey on large animals, though it may have

51:05

also eaten fish and small prey. They

51:08

suggested the pre-maxilla and maxilla of

51:10

the upper jaw was not mobile

51:12

and more robust than previously thought,

51:14

and Dilophosaurus could have grasped animals

51:16

with its arms while hunting and

51:18

scavenging. There's some

51:20

large tooth marks found on the

51:23

sauropodomorphs serosaurus that's thought to be

51:25

from Dilophosaurus because the tooth marks

51:27

match the right size for

51:29

that dinosaur. Yeah, because again,

51:31

there were not a lot of other

51:33

large predatory dinosaurs in the early Jurassic.

51:35

Yes. Not a lot of options

51:38

for big tooth marks. Brown

51:40

and Row in 2021 said Dilophosaurus

51:42

could puncture bone with its jaws.

51:45

They also found it had unidirectional breathing like

51:47

birds where air flows in and out of

51:49

the lungs. And that means it had a

51:51

high metabolism. It was probably fast and agile.

51:54

So they thought Dilophosaurus was an apex predator,

51:56

not a scavenger. They

52:00

start as low ridges at the front of the skull,

52:03

and then they get higher in plate shaped toward the

52:05

roof of the skull. Yeah,

52:07

a lot bigger again than the

52:09

Dilophosaurus in Jurassic Park. Dilophosaurus

52:12

and Jurassic Park, I feel like, are two

52:14

semi circles sort of farther back on the

52:16

head. At least the Brian Eng interpretation

52:18

of the skull, and

52:21

I guess would be the modern interpretation because

52:23

I'm sure he worked with the authors on

52:25

how to draw it, starts very

52:27

far on the tip of the snout, goes

52:29

up really high and extends all the way

52:31

back towards the back of the head, basically.

52:33

Yes. And it's almost more

52:35

like a mohawk, or like two mohawks

52:38

next to each other all the way across the head. Because

52:41

it starts at the front of the snout,

52:43

yeah. Yeah, well, I mean on our head,

52:46

right? Yeah. The mohawk starts sort of in

52:48

front of the head too. Well,

52:50

it's unclear what the crests

52:52

were used for. They

52:54

would have been too weak to fight with,

52:56

but maybe they were used for display, like

52:58

to recognize each other or attract mates. There

53:02

were air sacs in the bones around the brain,

53:04

and they're linked with sinus cavities in the front

53:06

of the skull. And the opening in

53:08

front of the eye sockets were also linked to the

53:10

side of the crest, so the crest probably also

53:12

had air sacs. Yeah, so they might've

53:14

been hollow. And maybe helped

53:17

regulate body temperature. The

53:19

type species is Dilophosaurus weatheruli.

53:23

Three skeletons were found in 1940 in Arizona. Only

53:26

two were collected in 1942. It

53:29

took 10 days to collect those two

53:31

skeletons. Well said it was a rush

53:33

job. And then they brought

53:35

them back to Berkeley, the UC Museum of

53:38

Paleontology. It was Jesse Williams, a

53:40

Navajo man, who first found the fossils in 1940.

53:43

And according to Navajo myth, footprints

53:46

in dinosaur bones were often explained as

53:48

belonging to monsters killed off by the

53:50

hero twins who slayed monsters. And

53:53

when the hero twins slayed a monster, they buried the

53:55

monster and turned it into stone. Over time, they got

53:57

rid of all the monsters on earth and then people.

1:04:00

were farming, but they were definitely

1:04:02

eating other things. And

1:04:04

for context, humans started domesticating plants about 12,000

1:04:06

years ago. So ants had

1:04:08

a big headstart. About 66 million

1:04:10

years, because 12,000 years is basically

1:04:12

a rounding error at that point. Yes. For

1:04:16

this study, they analyzed 475 fungal species cultivated

1:04:20

by ants. They found two

1:04:22

fungal lineages from the same ancestor of

1:04:24

today's leafcutter ants from 66

1:04:27

million years ago. It's possible

1:04:29

that the leafcutter ant ancestors lived near

1:04:32

the fungi and then eat it sometimes.

1:04:34

And the fungi was already adapted to

1:04:36

be cultivated because of this. So

1:04:40

like I was saying, it wasn't a big part

1:04:42

of their diet at first, but then after the

1:04:44

asteroid hit, it became much more important. It was

1:04:46

probably their only food source. The

1:04:49

team also found that about 27 million years

1:04:51

ago, there was one type of fungus that

1:04:53

was domesticated and it was mutually beneficial for

1:04:55

the fungus and the ants. They

1:04:57

were in a seasonally dry habitat in

1:04:59

South America. And

1:05:02

it was mutually beneficial because the fungus decomposes

1:05:04

organic matter carried by the ants. And then

1:05:06

the ants eat what the fungus produces that

1:05:08

it can't get from other sources. Today,

1:05:12

there are four groups of ants that cultivate four

1:05:14

types of fungi. And

1:05:16

in some cases, the ants even change

1:05:18

the fungus to provide certain nutrients. They

1:05:20

form structures, the fungi, similar

1:05:22

to grape clusters and that are rich

1:05:24

in sugars. It's unclear how the ants

1:05:27

do this. They

1:05:29

got some secrets, those ants. They do.

1:05:31

They're very impressive animals. They

1:05:33

are. I remember learning that ants can

1:05:35

live up to 20 years. So

1:05:38

most people that find ants in their house, there's

1:05:40

a good chance that those ants have lived in

1:05:42

their house longer than they have. It's

1:05:47

really the ants' house. Very

1:05:51

cool. They are, that is cool. So

1:05:53

that wraps up this episode of I Know

1:05:56

Dine. Thank you for listening.

1:05:59

Stay tuned. Our next episode

1:06:01

will be celebrating 100 years of

1:06:04

Velociraptor and that's our first episode that

1:06:06

we'll be releasing while we're out on

1:06:08

parental leave. So thank

1:06:10

you for sticking with us and for your

1:06:12

support. We hope you enjoy

1:06:14

our parental leave episodes. And

1:06:17

if you want more dinosaur goodness and

1:06:19

to keep up on the latest

1:06:21

updates, then please

1:06:23

consider joining our Patreon,

1:06:25

patreon.com/inodino. Thanks again and

1:06:28

until next time. You

1:06:30

could tell from watching me walk

1:06:32

on my dinosaur. Don't

1:06:35

give up.