Episode 511: What Did Victorians Consider Dinosaurs? Edward Dolnick joins to debate how scientists and most of the people seen dinosaurs within the early 1800s. Plus hadrosaurs residing in age-separated teams, two new hadrosauroids: Coahuilasaurus from Mexico and Qianjiangsaurus from China, and the most recent installment within the Jurassic Park franchise can be referred to as Jurassic World Rebirth and are available out on July 2, 2025
Information:
- There’s a brand new kritosaurin hadrosaur dinosaur, Coahuilasaurus lipani supply
- There’s a brand new hadrosauroid ornithopod dinosaur, Qianjiangsaurus changshengi supply
- The hadrosaur Hypacrosaurus lived in teams separated by age (juveniles lived individually from adults) supply
- The brand new Jurassic World movie, popping out subsequent July 2, has a title: Jurassic World Rebirth supply
Interview:
Edward Dolnick, the creator of the guide, Dinosaurs on the Dinner Occasion, which is about how a gaggle of Victorians found prehistoric animals and it modified our understanding of the world
Sponsors:
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The dinosaur of the day: Theiophytalia
- Iguanodontian dinosaur that lived within the Early Cretaceous in what’s now Colorado, U.S.
- Lived about 125 to 100 million years in the past
- Initially regarded as Camptosaurus
- Appeared much like Camptosaurus (DoD in ep 7)
- Which additionally appeared much like Iguanodon
- May stroll on all fours or simply two
- Had a cumbersome physique, lengthy tail, arms shorter than legs, and a protracted cranium
- Estimated to be about 26 to 30 ft (8 to 9 m) lengthy
- Sort and solely species is Theiophytalia kerri
- Named in 2006 by Kathleen Brill and Kenneth Carpenter
- Partial cranium first present in 1878 by James Kerr
- Kerr had graduated from Yale and had tuberculosis, so he went west to discover a treatment
- He turned a professor of geology and mining at Colorado Faculty and began trying to find fossils
- Kerr despatched the partial cranium to O.C. Marsh
- Marsh in all probability sought out the cranium. He heard about Kerr’s discovery of dinosaur bones and despatched H.C. Beckwith to analyze, who confirmed to Marsh
- Appears Marsh took credit score for accumulating the cranium, or not less than the file of the cranium within the archives suggests so
- Marsh thought the cranium got here from the Morrison Formation
- O.C. Marsh referred the cranium in 1887 to Camptosaurus
- On the time, Marsh was getting numerous specimens from the Bone Wars digs (over a interval of eight years), together with related Camptosaurus skulls that had been present in Wyoming
- Charles Gilmore in 1909 used that cranium to reconstruct the cranium of Camptosaurus
- Not many Camptosaurus skulls or cranium materials has been discovered
- On the time Kerr discovered the fossil, Colorado Faculty didn’t have a spot to retailer them, and lots of the containers positioned in barns and cellars have been misplaced
- Kerr wrote: “In 1878, I found in one of many ridges east of the Crimson Rocks forming the east boundary of the Backyard of the Gods, parts of 21 sea monsters that had been caught as in a basin in one in every of Earth’s early paroxisms [sic]. There have been many vertebra of enormous dimension. A few of them have been nicely preserved. Of the massive animal within the type of a saurian, we may discover solely casts of components. From the lay of those components, we calculated that the animal was 117 ft in size. A lot of the bones and a few of the casts have been boxed up for Colorado Faculty. The school at the moment having no place to retailer such issues, the containers have been positioned in barns and cellars and practically all have been misplaced”.
- After finding out the cranium, Brill and Carpenter discovered that soil on it matched Cretaceous soil, not Jurassic interval soil
- Unclear the place precisely the cranium was discovered, solely have the be aware Kerr wrote to go by, and the matching soil
- Found out it got here from someplace within the Lytle Member of the Purgatoire Formation, and was from the Early Cretaceous
- Lived on a heat, lush shoreline on the sting of an inland sea
- Shallow sea had numerous sharks, fish, clams, plesiosaurs, and birds
- Attainable the dinosaur washed out to sea and that’s how the cranium was preserved
- Brill and Carpenter discovered some variations within the cranium that made Theiophytalia distinctive (longer, heavier, extra wrinkled snout in comparison with Camptosaurus, for instance)
- Extra carefully associated to Iguanodon than Camptosaurus
- Closest relative was Hippodraco
- Hippodraco is an iguanodontian ornithopod, named in 2010, that lived within the Early Cretaceous in what’s now Utah, U.S.
- Genus identify means “horse dragon”
- Had a protracted form that appeared considerably like a horse cranium
- Genus Theiophytalia identify means “divine backyard” or “backyard of the gods”
- Named for Backyard of the Gods, a park in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the place the cranium was discovered
- Species identify is in honor of James Hutchinson Kerr
- Backyard of the Gods is a 1,300 acre nationwide park, with limestone and sandstone formations that span about 300 million years
- Backyard of the Gods was named in 1859 by surveyors from Denver who, when seeing the rock formations, stated it was a spot match for gods to assemble
- Most likely an grownup, primarily based on fused bones within the cranium
- Cranium is estimated to be over 18 in (nearly 47 cm) lengthy
- Cranium dimension is in between Camptosaurus and Iguanodon
- Can see a reproduction of Theiophytalia at Backyard of the Gods Customer & Nature Heart
Enjoyable Truth:
Matching dinosaur tracks have been discovered on two totally different continents, over 3,700 mi (6,000 km) aside.
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