Stegosaurians + armored dinosaurs + Triassic tetrapods in Germany + Wyoming fossil map + more

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Ben Creisler

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Mar 23, 2025, 8:42:25 PM3/23/25
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Ben Creisler

Some recent items:

From dinosaurs to birds: The origins of feather formation

The Stegosaurian Dinosaurs with Susannah Maidment
The Geological Society  (video)
67 min.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqSROKjg5m0

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Michael B. Habib (2025)
Gladiators of the Mesozoic
The Horned and Armored Dinosaurs Were the Gladiators of the Mesozoic
Scientific American Magazine 332(4)

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Brachiosaurus humerus at the Smithsonian--most touched dinosaur bone of all time

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5th Palaeontological Virtual Congress: a bony lesion in an apatosaur femur

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Brontosaurus is already ten years a valid genus (in Czech)

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Western University (Ontario) prof reports first evidence of Cretaceous Period dinosaurs in South Africa
Guy Plint and his collaborators identified footprints, most likely produced by brachiosaurs

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Paleontologists Unearth Oldest Plant-Eating Dinosaur in Morocco, Rewriting Jurassic History by 2 Million Years

https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/03/paleontologists-unearth-oldest-plant-eating-dinosaur-in-morocco-rewriting-jurassic-history-by-2-million-years/ 

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Oldest cerapodan ornithischian dinosaur discovered in Morocco

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147-Million-Year-Old Pterosaur Fossil Discovered in England

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Triassic Life: Ancient amphibians, crocodile relatives, early dinosaurs and mammalian ancestors from Central European Basin

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A 'Triassic Park' in Southwestern Germany

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Triassic fossils shed new light on ancient ecosystems

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Restoring the skull of Texas Nessie

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The future of the Jurassic Coast with Dr Anjana Khatwa
The Etches Collection (video)
44 min.

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'This is a crisis’: A southern Utah city is set to build a power station on top of a premier dinosaur fossil site
St. George area a “paleontological jackpot” and one of North America’s top Jurassic period track sites.

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Digital Timeline Map Lets Anyone Track Dinosaurs When They Inhabited Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin
A new digital map called the “Bighorn Basin WY Land Mammal Age Map” allows users to track dinosaurs, prehistoric animals and ancient plants that once thrived in and ruled the Bighorn Basin in central Wyoming.

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Meet A Paleoartist: Christopher DiPiazza
Maryland Nature (video)
74 min.

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Non-dino:

Infernal first day of the Tertiary (in Czech)

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Form and Function of the Skull of the Ice Age Bush Dog

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MEGALOCEROS the Giant Deer with DR ROMAN CROITOR
Evolution Soup (video)
18 min.

Mike Habib

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Mar 23, 2025, 9:56:33 PM3/23/25
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Thanks for including my new Sci Am piece, Ben!

DMLers: A huge shoutout to both Owen Weber and Mark Witton for the artwork. I want to especially note the superb background research that Mark did to produce the “Old” vs “New” illustrations. The updated nodosaur (Borealopelta) shown head on is terrifying.

Any feedback folks have would be great, as this is an area of active work at the moment, with one paper in the pipeline already and likely two more within the next year or two.

Cheers!

—Mike

Michael B. Habib, MS PhD
Director of Data Visualization
Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine
UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center
Division of Cardiology
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Medical Building
100 Medical Plaza, Suite 660
Los Angeles, CA 90095
MBH...@mednet.ucla.edu

Research Associate, Dinosaur Institute
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History
900 W Exposition Blvd. Los Angeles, 90007

biology...@gmail.com
+1 (443) 280-0181

On Mar 23, 2025, at 5:42 PM, Ben Creisler <bcre...@gmail.com> wrote:


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Gregory Paul

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Mar 24, 2025, 11:16:50 PM3/24/25
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Looking for PDF of 

Norman, D. B. 2015. On the history, osteology, and systematic position of the Wealden (Hastings Group) dinosaur Hypselospinus fittoni (Iguanodontia: Styracosterna). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 173, pp.92–189.

GSPaul

Gunnar Bivens

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Mar 24, 2025, 11:18:30 PM3/24/25
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Tim Williams

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Mar 25, 2025, 8:24:35 PM3/25/25
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Really neat work, Mike - I look forward to the publications.  A few thoughts...

Firstly, if armored dinosaurs used their armor for sexual display or combat, especially between dueling males.... should we expect to see evidence of sexual dimorphism in this armor?  

Secondly, the distinction between strength and toughness for bone and keratin reminded me of the difference between bone and cartilage.  As everyone knows, the jaws of sharks are made of cartilage (as is the entire skeleton).  One hypothesis, backed by biomechanical studies, is that shark jaws are highly adapted to withstand high impact, due to the 'shock absorbing' properties of cartilage.  For example, an adult great white can strike a seal head-on with its jaws and absorb the impact, whereas if its jaws were made of bone they would likely fracture.

Mike Taylor

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Mar 26, 2025, 3:40:24 AM3/26/25
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I'm ashamed to say I did not know shark jaws were cartilage. Based on all the shark jaws for sale in curiosity shops in seaside towns, I'd assumed that they were the one part of the skeleton that was bone. Are they at least partially mineralized, so that they survive better than the rest of the skeleton? Or is it just that the people who prepare the jaws out for sale are especially skilled and careful?

Anyway, your broader point stands. Similarly, it's pretty clear that the unfinished surfaces at the end of sauropod limb bones carried thick cartilage caps that would have been much better adapted to supporting locomotory stress than the finished bone and thin articular cartilage of mammal bones. It's always seemed strange to me that some early palaeontologists interpreted the extensive cartilage caps of sauropod limb bones as evidence for aquatic lifestyle.

-- Mike.





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Mike Habib

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Mar 26, 2025, 9:59:35 AM3/26/25
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Hey Mike,

In short, yes - Shark jaws are mineralized cartilage. Other parts of the skeleton can also be mineralized. Mineralized cartilage is still less stiff, but more tough, than bone - so Tim is spot on with the mechanics.

Cheers,

—Mike H

Michael B. Habib, MS PhD
Director of Data Visualization
Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine
UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center
Division of Cardiology
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Medical Building
100 Medical Plaza, Suite 660
Los Angeles, CA 90095
MBH...@mednet.ucla.edu

Research Associate, Dinosaur Institute
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History
900 W Exposition Blvd. Los Angeles, 90007

biology...@gmail.com
+1 (443) 280-0181

On Mar 26, 2025, at 12:40 AM, Mike Taylor <saur...@gmail.com> wrote:



Mike Habib

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Mar 26, 2025, 10:31:34 AM3/26/25
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Thanks Tim!

Great question regarding dimorphism - and one I’ve been pondering. If modern taxa with armor/horns (like bovids) are any guide, then the answer is likely “a mix”. Some antelope have extreme dimorphism, while others have little. It would not surprise me if the same were true of thyreophorans and ceratopsians. The trick, of course, is sample size and properly associating armor: most dinosaur armor maps are composites. Borealopelta and Zuul are the exceptions, but we only have one of each.

Cheers,

—Mike H

Michael B. Habib, MS PhD
Director of Data Visualization
Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine
UCLA Cardiac Arrhythmia Center
Division of Cardiology
Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Medical Building
100 Medical Plaza, Suite 660
Los Angeles, CA 90095
MBH...@mednet.ucla.edu

Research Associate, Dinosaur Institute
Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History
900 W Exposition Blvd. Los Angeles, 90007

biology...@gmail.com
+1 (443) 280-0181

On Mar 25, 2025, at 5:24 PM, Tim Williams <tij...@gmail.com> wrote:


Really neat work, Mike - I look forward to the publications.  A few thoughts...

Firstly, if armored dinosaurs used their armor for sexual display or combat, especially between dueling males.... should we expect to see evidence of sexual dimorphism in this armor?  

Secondly, the distinction between strength and toughness for bone and keratin reminded me of the difference between bone and cartilage.  As everyone knows, the jaws of sharks are made of cartilage (as is the entire skeleton).  One hypothesis, backed by biomechanical studies, is that shark jaws are highly adapted to withstand high impact, due to the 'shock absorbing' properties of cartilage.  For example, an adult great white can strike a seal head-on with its jaws and absorb the impact, whereas if its jaws were made of bone they would likely fracture.

--

Gregory Paul

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Mar 26, 2025, 1:00:13 PM3/26/25
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An example was how it was thought for a good while that Triceratops horridus and T. prorsus were boys and girls, until they turned out to be stratigrapically distinct. 

I have finished up the first skull restoration and description of Deinonychus antirrhopus based on all the cranial material from the Yale Quarry -- which is the only material that can be assigned to the taxon BTW -- and there are like way cool differences in the two specimen's nasals of a degree I have not seen elsewhere. Boys and girls? Different species? You decide. 

GSPaul

Tim Williams

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Mar 27, 2025, 2:45:29 AM3/27/25
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The intraspecific display/combat hypothesis in herbivorous dinosaurs also ties in with this interpretation from the new _Duonychus_ paper: "Although claws usually have a dominant function, likely for hook-and-pull foraging in most derived therizinosaurs, these structures could also have been utilized for other purposes, such as territoriality, defense, courtship, play, etc."  I'd suggest that these "other purposes" (socio-sexual) might have been the dominant function in derived therizinosaurs - culminating in _Therizinosaurus_ in which the massive manual claws are thought to have had a purely decorative function (Qin et al. 2023; doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-04552-4)

Similarly, in oviraptorosaurs the forelimb feathers and hand-claws could be used for display and combat, rather than having any important function in feeding.  This would help explain the observed forelimb disparity in oviraptorosaurs apparently being unrelated to diet (Mead et al. 2015; doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.7720925), and fits with the powerful and feathered forelimbs inferred for _Apatoraptor_ (Funston and Currie, 2016; doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2016.1160910).  

This intraspecific display/combat function of the forelimbs might apply more generally to pennaraptorans, including the predatory ones.  It also might explain the retention of large wing-claws in basal avialans: used in intraspecific contests, like the spurs of some modern birds (e.g., anhimas).  

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