Chapter 12: Images for lectures
Updates for Chapter 12
General Dinosaur Web Links
Dinosaur Paleontologists
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Alphabetical Order (in case you are looking for yourself!)
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Paul Barrett, dinosaur expert at the Natural History Museum in London
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The exotic life of Barnum Brown. Discover magazine, March 2007.
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De Koningin van dinosaurus poep!" That's the "Queen of Dinosaur Poop!" in case you've forgotten your Dutch. Profile of Karen Chin.
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Profile of Phil Currie Discover magazine, May 1999.
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Greg Erickson's Web page
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Interview with Jack Horner. The Guardian, August 2003.
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William Hammer, who digs for dinosaurs in Antarctica
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Featuring the work of Tom Rich on Australian polar dinosaurs. Smithsonian magazine, November 2007.
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Profile of Bruce Rothschild and his work on dinosaur paleopathology
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Profile of Mary Schweitzer. Discover, April 2006
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The home page for Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, featuring his expeditions and discoveries.
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Larry Witmer's home page [he works on dinosaur noses, pterosaur brains, and so on...]
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Profile of Xing Xu. Nature news item.
Dinosaur Expeditions
Reconstructing Dinosaurs
Theropods
The other theropods (collectively called tetanurans (diverse carnivorous dinosaurs), separated early into the allosaurs (massive, powerful predators) and the lighter and more agile coelurosaurs.
Coelurosauria were extremely bird-like dinosaurs.
Within coelurosaurs, one lineage of small, agile carnivores includes the birds (Chapter 13) and the dromaeosaurs.
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Deinonychus
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Microraptor
This is a very small dromaeosaur from the famous early Cretaceous beds of Liaoning Province, China.
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New York Times, December 2000.
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BBC News OnLine, December 2000.
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Microraptor flew like a biplane !!!???. National Geographic News, October 18, 2005. Garbage. From Sankar (Protoavis) Chatterjee. This was presented at a talk at the GSA Annual Meeting (not SVP). Anyone with the enormous registration fee can say anything. Wait for the publication...
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Sinovenator, a new little theropod dinosaur from China.. Press release here.
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Velociraptor
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Velociraptor and other dinosaurs from Mongolian expeditions
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A new dromaeosaur Buitreraptor from Patagonia is very important. But how? It is certainly a dromaeosaur, but its closest relatives are the "bird-like" genera Unenlagia from Argentina and Rahonavis from Madagascar. Cladistic analysis puts these three together into a Gondwanan group of dromaeosaurs as opposed to the Laurasian majority we are so familiar with. In turn, that asks when the two groups separated, and where their ancestry was. It's Jurassic rather than Cretaceous.
The subplot is the fact that Rahonavis is "bird-like". A question, then: were dromaeosaurs so "bird-like" that the Gondwanan ones were evolving toward flight in Gondwana while Laurasian ones were evolving toward Archaeopteryx and all later birds? In particular, there is a largely undiscussed possibility/implication that Rahonavis was actually flying. If true, this would REALLY upset the carefully crafted stories about birds being unique. But I'm not sure what the real evidence is for ANY flight in Rahonavis, and the forelimbs of Buitreraptor are not for flight (see National Geographic story). As readers of History of Life know, I don't even think that Archaeopteryx could fly much, if at all.
So I think that the new fossil is going to be interesting for its paleogeography and for its implication that dromaeosaurs have deep roots within theropods. It also implies there are a lot of fossils still to be discovered. But maybe that's all the intellectual hurdles we have to face at the moment.
The paper is in Nature, so it is not freely available on the Web.
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The dromaeosaur Balaur from the late Cretaceous of Transylvania, in Romania. It has two big slashing claws on each foot, compared with the usual one. To its credit, the BBC posts an image of the feet, not an artist's rendition of them. There is no skull, but it is clear this dinosaur was closely related to Velociraptor. It lived on a Cretaceous island with an unusual fauna, and is part of a new insight into the wonderful evolutionary events that can happen on isolated islands. The paper is in PNAS.
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Building an animatronic Troodon . Article from Scientific American 2001. The movie, on YouTube .
Mononykus is a bird-like theropod from Mongolia, placed within a group called the alvarezsaurids. I write in the book that I suspect it operated rather like a megapod, for example, the brush turkey of Queensland, Australia.
Ornithomimids are the so-called ostrich dinosaurs.
Tiny Theropods
Compsognathus
Scipionyx
A little theropod from Italy, Scipionyx, is beautifully preserved. (This specimen has been called "Skippy" -- irresistible!).
And on that same note, meet "Kittysaurus"! Eotyrannus, a new small theropod from England.
Giant Theropods
Some theropods evolved to giant size, and are known informally as "carnosaurs". Giant size evolved at least four times, so carnosaurs are NOT a clade:
1. Among the Jurassic allosaurs
The bite of an Allosaurus. When it was published in 2001, this paper was on open access as Nature's Feature of the Week. Well, those days are gone! You'll have to look at this instead:
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BBC News OnLine
2. Among the Cretaceous tyrannosaurs, which lived in Asia and North America.
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Tyrannosaurs through time: surprising new tiny tyrannosaurs. the best accessible summary of tyrannosaurs. Feature article in Scientific American, December 2009. Available online, thank you!
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Web page for the tyrannosaurs on the Tree of Life site; written by Tom Holtz, August 2000.
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The Tyrannosaurus rex page from UC Berkeley
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Recently, science has surpassed itself by turning up a coprolite from Tyrannosaurus rex.
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The most complete skeleton of T. rex is the specimen known as Sue , which had an eventful history during its life, and after its discovery too!
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Sue at the Field Museum in Chicago
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Sue was the subject of a NOVA program, and you can check the Web page for the program and the the complete transcript of the TV script.
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Tellling the sex of a tyrannosaur: New Scientist, June 2005.
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Feathers on an ancestral tyrannosaur. New Scientist, October 2004.
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How fast could Tyrannosaurus run? Adults couldn't run much at all, it seems:
National Geographic News, February 28, 2002, about a paper in Nature. However, remember that young Tyrannosaurus could have done, and probably did.
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How fast could tyrannosaurs grow? Fast.
3. In the Cretaceous of Gondwana.
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Giganotosaurus.
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The largest carnivorous dinosaur yet discovered..This is probably a new genus, related to Giganotosaurus. Story from BBC News OnLine, March 13, 2000. Includes a picture of the skull (with Phil Currie, for scale and authenticity!).
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Rajasaurus. This is a big theropod from the latest Cretaceous of India, a chronological and ecological equivalent of Tyrannosaurus.
4. In Carcharodontosaurus from North Africa.
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Carcharodontosaurus
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Afrovenator
Strange theropods
Incisivosaurus, a gnawing oviraptosaur. This Cretaceous dinosaur is from the Liaoning area of China. First assessments say it's herbivorous. It could also be gnawing into bark for insects and grubs, IMHO.
Spinosaurs
The most strangely adapted theropods are the spinosaurs, which have a head that has many crocodile-like features, probably because these theropods evolved to eat large fish. Spinosaurus itself has a sail on its back, rather like that of Dimetrodon, but a full analysis has not been done for Spinosaurus, mostly because the best specimen found before 1998 was bombed to fragments in World War II. However, the newly discovered Suchomimus is a spinosaur.
No-one properly understands therizinosaurs yet.
There is increasing evidence that there was a radiation among abelisaurs, theropod dinosaurs that flourished in Gondwanaland, in parallel with the dominantly Laurasian coelurosaurs.
Masiakasaurus, from Madagascar. (Press release from NSF).
Ornithischians
Stegosaurs and Ankylosaurs
Stegosaurus and Ankylosaurus were thyreophoran (armored) Ornithischians
Ornithopods
Ceratopsians
Sauropodomorphs
Prosauropods
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Prosauropods are now the oldest known dinosaurs, from middle- to Late Triassic beds in Madagascar, slightly older than the South American beds that yielded the earliest theropods. The new fossils are jaw pieces from prosauropods. News release.
Sauropods
The earliest sauropod: from the late Triassic of South Africa. National Geographic News, July 10, 2003.
Here is the latest largest dinosaur, in a news report from BBC News OnLine, January 19, 2000. This new unnamed dinosaur is from Argentina, and is estimated to have been 51 meters long (175 feet). Warning: the estimate is based on multiplying up from the size of two neck vertebrae.
But wait: here is another "world's largest dinosaur" (in Spain this time, but not in the plain). BBC News OnLine, February 27, 2004.
Computer reconstructions of sauropods are much improved over earlier attempts here is an article from Discover magazine in 2009. .
Some sauropod pages:
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Introduction to the Sauropods
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What did sauropods eat?
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Details of a new titanosaur, Rapetosaurus, from Madagascar. Press release, August 2, 2001.
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A new giant sauropod, from the Cretaceous of Egypt. New York Times, June 1, 2001. The dinosaur is a titanosaur, related to the largest of them all, Argentinosaurus.
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Puertasaurus, a gigantic sauropod from Argentina. National Geographic News, Jult 2006. Here is a photo gallery of Puertasaurus, from National Geographic News.
Dinosaur Biogeography
Dinosaur Paleobiology: Life at Large Size
Posture and Habitat
Growth Rate
Tyrannosaurus rex grew VERY fast. This is a study published in Nature in August 2004 (you won't find it freely available on the Web). It's from an all-star cast, lead author Greg Erickson. And it's the most thorough study yet of the growth of T. rex and other tyrannosaurids.
Dinosaur Behavior
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Walking With Dinosaurs, background report on a BBC program using new animations of dinosaurs. Here is also the home page for that program.
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Dinosaur behavior can be judged by footprints; for example, the dinosaur stampede discovered in Queensland, Australia: Lark Quarry, a National Heritage site
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The world's largest collection of dinosaur footprints
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How did theropods make footprints? And how different is the trace fossil from the actual foot shape?
Movie of a (virtual) theropod making a (virtual) footprint. From Gatesy's web site.
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Trackway of a large running theropod dinosaur. BBC News OnLine, January 30, 2002, on a paper in Nature, which is not universally available on the Web. This is the first proof that large theropods could run, though, of course, most people believed that they could on the basis of the skeleton. Reference: Day, J. J., et al. 2002. Dinosaur locomotion from a new trackway. Nature 415, 494-495.
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Sauropod tracks in England suggest herd behavior. New research, published in Nature, reported here in National Geographic News, May 30, 2002.
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Pachycephalosaurs
New research suggests that the head-butting story about pachycephalosaurs may not be correct. Update on pachycephalosaur behavior, June 2004. UC Berkeley news release.
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Triceratops horns were for display! Work by Mark Goodwin and Jack Horner.
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Parasaurolophus
Some hadrosaurs such as Parasaurolophus had huge crests on the head. The crests contained tubes running upward from the nostrils and back down into the roof of the mouth. When the tubes are reconstructed they look like medieval horns and can be blown to give a note. Listen to the sounds it may have made.
Dinosaur Noses:
Dinosaur nostrils may have been reconstructed in the wrong place.
The soft tissue of dinosaurs
Profile of Mary Schweitzer and her work on dinosaur soft tissue. Discover, April 2006
In 2009, Mary Schweitzer reported finding original blood cells in a herbivorous duckbill dinosaur. Discover magazine blog
Dinosaur diseases
A dinosaur with a brain tumor. National Geographic News, November 24, 2003.
Dinosaur Coprolites
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Feature article on Karen Chin's research, Discover 1996.
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Recently, science has surpassed itself by turning up a coprolite from Tyrannosaurus rex.
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Then in 2004 Karen Chin identified preserved meat in a coprolite from an early tyrannosaur. Discover magazine
Were Dinosaurs Warm-Blooded?
Down feathers and/or display feathers on theropod dinosaurs
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New dromaeosaur with feathers on all four limbs and on the tail. The fossil is beautiful and the reconstruction looks bizarre. It is a new species of Microraptor. Published in Nature, January 2003. I'm not convinced from the photos that the drawing is reasonable. This creature is doing something bizarre, I would argue that its feathers on the tail and legs are display feathers, and (in my opinion) it is NOT on the specific evolutionary lineage that led to birds.
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Convincing feathers on dinosaurs
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BBC News OnLine
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Feature article in Natural History by Mark Norell of the American Museum, July 2001.
This discovery completely nails the fact that many (maybe all) small theropods had feathers. They could not have been for flight, so they were either for thermoregulation or display. Here are some other examples:
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Caution: Archaeoraptor, a fake fossil.
Dinosaur Eggs and Nests
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A dinosaur with two unlaid eggs inside. This is from the Upper Cretaceous of China, and it's an oviraptorosaur.
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Dinosaur nests in Mongolia have produced fascinating science. The dinosaur Troodon apparently >laid its eggs over some time (as birds do), rather than all at once (as crocodiles and turtles do).
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The Mongolian nests were naturally associated with the most abundant dinosaur in the area, Protoceratops. To everyone's surprise, when an embryo was finally discovered inside one of the eggs, it was well enough preserved to be identified not as Protoceratops, but as Oviraptor. Egg and embryo: photograph of real specimen. Later, an adult Oviraptor fossil was discovered, preserved as it died crouched over its nest of Oviraptor eggs.
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Discovery of major trove of fossil dinosaur eggs and embryos in Argentina.
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Brooding Eggs. A block of rock collected in Mongolia in 1993 turned out to contain an adult Oviraptor that had been buried in a sandstorm while it was crouched over a nest of Oviraptor eggs. The only reasonable explanation of this find is that the dinosaur was brooding its eggs, just as most living birds do. By 1996, three of the seven known Oviraptor adults had been discovered on or near nests. It is very unlikely that Oviraptor was cold-blooded! However, it becomes a matter of judgment how far to extend Oviraptor's body temperature to other dinosaurs.
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While we are talking about dinosaur embryos inside dinosaur eggs, let's ask how they compare to bird embryos inside bird eggs. Here is an awesome site that shows an emu embryo inside an emu egg. University of Texas CT lab.
P. 168. High-Latitude Dinosaurs
P. 170. Passive (Behavioral) Thermoregulation?
P. 172. Dinosaur respiration: they could breathe while they ran
This research helps to clinch a warm-blooded interpretation. Birds have a pelvic anatomy that allows them to rhythmically move the pubic bone to help pump air in and out of the lungs. David Carrier and Colleen Farmer found that living alligators have the same adaptation. And given the phylogeny of archosaurs, that makes it likely that dinosaurs did. Reasonable reconstruction of the dinosaur pelvic anatomy makes it almost certain that they did. So dinosaurs could breathe while they ran, not in the same way as mammals can, but with a mechanism that had a different evolutionary origin, within archosaurs.
Alligators can breathe while they move (so dinosaurs could too) Press release, University of Utah, November 19, 2001, about the latest research by David Carrier and Colleen Farmer.
Trying to explain "dinosaur graveyards".
The reference list for Chapter 12
Page last updated April 7, 2013.
Links all checked, March 23, 2013
Some broken links have remained, and need to be replaced.
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