Episode 515: New Silesaur and Tyrannosaurid Dinosaurs. The brand new silesaur Gondwanax was named from Southern Brazil and will present a transition between silesaurs and neornithischians; The brand new tyrannosaurid Labocania aguillonae helps solidify Labocania as a real tyrannosaurid; Plus a brand new enormous Pachyrhinosaurus cranium and a brand new Mesozoic swimming chicken.
Information:
- A brand new, large, Pachyrhinosaurus (ceratopsian) cranium nicknamed “Huge Sam” was present in Northern Alberta, Canada supply
- There’s a brand new silesaur, Gondwanax paraisensis, from Southern Brazil supply
- There’s a brand new tyrannosaurid species, Labocania aguillonae, from Northern Mexico supply
- There’s a brand new euornithean chicken, Shuilingornis angelai, is among the earliest identified birds with semi-aquatic options supply
Sponsors:
The dinosaur of the day: Kwanasaurus
- Silesaur that lived within the Late Triassic in what’s now Colorado, U.S. (Eagle Basin of the Chinle Formation)
- Reconstruction appears to be like just like Silesaurus
- Walked on all fours, had an extended tail, a considerably lengthy neck, lengthy head
- Claws on the toes
- Additionally reconstructed with a pores and skin flap below the chin
- Had a beak
- Estimated to be concerning the dimension of a medium sized canine
- About 4 to 5 toes lengthy (1.2 to 1.5 m) lengthy, and half the size is the tail
- Kind species is Kwanasaurus williamparkeri
- Present in an space identified for Late Triassic dinosaur fossils and different reptiles
- Silesaurids are probably the most ample dinosauromorphs within the Eagle Basin
- Holotype features a partial higher jaw
- Different fossils discovered embrace a number of decrease jaws, tooth, components of the hips, thigh bones, and an arm bone
- Took 20 years to gather the fossils (fragile materials, and arduous to excavate)
- Northernmost, youngest silesaurid present in North America
- A number of femora discovered (thigh bones), which may characterize a spread of sizes and ontogenetic modifications (progress sequence)
- Named in 2019 by Jeffrey Martz and Bryan Small
- Genus title comes from the Ute dialect and means “eagle” and refers back to the fossils being discovered at Eagle Basin, close to the cities Eagle and Gypsum
- Species title is in honor of the writer’s buddy and colleague Invoice Parker, “whose analysis has helped to vastly make clear our understanding of Late Triassic dinosauromorph range within the western United States”
- Extra specialised herbivore than different silesaurids
- Kwanasaurus had “probably the most excessive diversifications for folivory but identified inside Silesauridae” (for being an herbivore)
- Had a deeper, stronger cranium
- Had leaf-shaped tooth in addition to thick, “nearly durophagous” tooth (may eat animals with shells), and in addition had some rounded tooth
- See leaf-shaped tooth in early ornithischians, early sauropodomorphs, and a few theropods
- Often affiliate with being a plant eater (herbivorous)
- Had tooth in sockets that had been additionally fused to the encompassing bone
- Had an alternating sample of tooth alternative (alternative tooth able to go and alternating between odd and even tooth positions)
- Had a brief, sturdy higher jaw (maxillae), in comparison with different silesaurids that had been extra slender
- Decrease jaw (dentary) additionally sturdy and had a ridge on it
- Could have had a comparatively highly effective chew
- Perhaps ate harder meals than most different silesaurids, just like how herbivorous lizards advanced extra compact, highly effective skulls to eat robust, fibrous vegetation
- Entrance of the higher jaw is just like Lewisuchus and Silesaurus
- Lewisuchus was a basal silesaur that lived within the Late Triassic, present in Argentina, and had osteoderms on its again (named in 1972)
- Lewisuchus had tooth that will imply it ate meat (pointed serrated tooth, and in addition slender jaws)
- Extra derived silesaurs like Silesaurus had nearly conical tooth that weren’t that serrated and had a toothless beak, and primarily based on put on patterns on the tooth might have been herbivorous or omnivorous or ate bugs
- Silesaurids had been broadly distributed within the Late Triassic, in each moist and dry climates all around the world
- Primarily based on silesaurid tooth, could possibly be partly profitable due to their means to adapt to eat completely different meals
- However silesaurs appeared to get increasingly herbivorous
- See this with sauropodomorphs too within the Late Triassic (convergent evolution)
- Different animals that lived across the similar time and place embrace the pterosauromorph Dromomeron, the aetosaur Stenomyti (armored reptile that appeared like a crocodile and an armadillo), and coelophysids, and plenty of silesaurs
Enjoyable Reality:
Giant theropod dinosaurs might have thrived in polar environments.
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