This will probably be my last post before Christmas! This year my gift to you is a video of an Andean Condor (a dinosaur) getting a box stuck on his head. Every December at the zoo I work at we give out wrapped presents to the animals (in this case some dead mice). Enjoy.
Nothing spreads Christmas cheer like a giant flesh-eating bird getting a flamboyantly wrapped box stuck on his noggin. Am I right or am I right? Happy Holidays from Jersey Boys Hunt Dinosaurs!
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Europelta: Prehistoric Animal of the Week
This week goes to yet another new species, Europelta carbonensis! First described only a few weeks ago, Europelta was an ankylosaur, a kind of plant-eating dinosaur with thick, bony armor on its body, like Ankylosaurus or Gargoyleosaurus. It lived in what is now Spain during the Early Cretaceous, 112 million years ago. The name, Europelta carbonensis, translates to "European Shield from the Coal" since it was discovered in a coal mine. Europelta is considered a medium-sized dinosaur, measuring fifteen feet long from snout to tail.
Europelta is the most complete ankylosaur ever to be discovered in Europe and is known from two partial skeletons. Between the two specimens, most of the bones are known. Europelta is a member of the family called nodosauridae. Nodosaurids were ankylosaurs that typically had sharp, flattened protruding pieces of armor running down their flanks and no club weapon on the tip of the tail. Europelta, like other nodosaurids, also had a broad plate of bony armor covering the top of its pelvis called a sacral shield. Europelta is the oldest known member of the Nodosaurid family.
Europelta possessed some unique physical characteristics. Two of its pelvis bones, the pubis and ischium, were fused together to form one bone, called an ischiopubis. Also, Europelta had proportionally longer front limbs than what is typically seen in other ankylosaurs. Its teeth were small and possessed tiny leaf-shaped serrations for cutting plant material, similar to those of other ankylosaurs.
That's all for this week! Join us next week as we check out a dinosaur we will all be able to see on the silver screen soon!
References
Kirkland, J. I.; Alcalá, L.; Loewen, M. A.; Espílez, E.; Mampel, L.; Wiersma, J. P. (2013). "The Basal Nodosaurid Ankylosaur Europelta carbonensis n. gen., n. sp. From the Lower Cretaceous (Lower Albian) Escucha Formation of Northeastern Spain". In Butler, Richard J. PLoS ONE 8 (12): e80405. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0080405.
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| Life reconstruction of Europelta carbonensis by Christopher DiPiazza |
Europelta is the most complete ankylosaur ever to be discovered in Europe and is known from two partial skeletons. Between the two specimens, most of the bones are known. Europelta is a member of the family called nodosauridae. Nodosaurids were ankylosaurs that typically had sharp, flattened protruding pieces of armor running down their flanks and no club weapon on the tip of the tail. Europelta, like other nodosaurids, also had a broad plate of bony armor covering the top of its pelvis called a sacral shield. Europelta is the oldest known member of the Nodosaurid family.
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| Skull pieces of Europelta |
Europelta possessed some unique physical characteristics. Two of its pelvis bones, the pubis and ischium, were fused together to form one bone, called an ischiopubis. Also, Europelta had proportionally longer front limbs than what is typically seen in other ankylosaurs. Its teeth were small and possessed tiny leaf-shaped serrations for cutting plant material, similar to those of other ankylosaurs.
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| Some of the pieces of armor, called osteoderms, from Europelta. |
That's all for this week! Join us next week as we check out a dinosaur we will all be able to see on the silver screen soon!
References
Kirkland, J. I.; Alcalá, L.; Loewen, M. A.; Espílez, E.; Mampel, L.; Wiersma, J. P. (2013). "The Basal Nodosaurid Ankylosaur Europelta carbonensis n. gen., n. sp. From the Lower Cretaceous (Lower Albian) Escucha Formation of Northeastern Spain". In Butler, Richard J. PLoS ONE 8 (12): e80405. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0080405.
Friday, December 13, 2013
Fleshy Crest: Edmontosaurus Had One
The dinosaurs referred to as the "duck-billed", the hadrosaurs, are amongst the most extensively studied of all the extinct dinosaurs. Thanks to so many of their remains that have been found, we know how they nested, that they cared for their young, how fast they grew, what some of their organs were like, what they ate, and what their skin and scales looked like. That is a LOT more than what we can say about any other kind of prehistoric dinosaur!
Recently, yet another wonderfully preserved hadrosaur specimen has been uncovered in Alberta, Canada that preserved a lot of soft tissue around the neck and head. This hadrosaur was Edmontosaurus regalis, a close, earlier relative to Edmontosaurus annectens. Since it's original discovery, Edmontosaurus was considered sort of a typical, basic hadrosaur. It had the wide, flat bill but unlike some of its relatives, it sported no fancy crest on its head...except it actually did.
You see, the crest of Edmontosaurus was kept a mystery for so long because it wasn't made of bone like the crests of so many of its relatives such as Parasaurolophus or Tsintaosaurus. The crest of Edmontosaurus regalis was made of just skin so it would have rotted away rather quickly before the fossilization process could have happened. Luckily this particular specimen retained it! It was probably full of blood vessels and would have been soft, maybe even floppy, in life. This sort of thing isn't unheard of in living relatives, either. Just look at birds like chickens and turkeys for instance. Some lizards, like Green Iguanas and certain agamids have soft crests as well.
So why would a dinosaur evolve such a thing? Well, the easy answer could always be display. (When in doubt just say display.) It's why a lot of extant animals have them. It could be possible that only the males had them, or possibly had larger ones which would go along with what you would find in chickens and iguanas. A soft crest like that could also help regulate the animal's body temperature. Within the crest, blood would be closer to the outside air, and cool off more easily. Then this blood would be circulated back into the body, thus helping to cool the whole animal off. Chickens do this with their crests, called crowns, and many mammals also do this with their ears. This is why a lot of desert mammals have large ears.
Although this is pretty exciting, this doesn't in any way make up for the fact that Tsintaosaurus lost its hilarious penis-shaped crest. Nice try, science, but I'm still mad at you!
References
Bell, Fanti, Currie & Arbour. 2013. A Mummified Duck-Billed Dinosaur with a Soft-Tissue Cock’s Comb. Current Biology http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.11.008
Recently, yet another wonderfully preserved hadrosaur specimen has been uncovered in Alberta, Canada that preserved a lot of soft tissue around the neck and head. This hadrosaur was Edmontosaurus regalis, a close, earlier relative to Edmontosaurus annectens. Since it's original discovery, Edmontosaurus was considered sort of a typical, basic hadrosaur. It had the wide, flat bill but unlike some of its relatives, it sported no fancy crest on its head...except it actually did.
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| Image from the new paper showing where the crest is on the specimen by the white arrows. |
You see, the crest of Edmontosaurus was kept a mystery for so long because it wasn't made of bone like the crests of so many of its relatives such as Parasaurolophus or Tsintaosaurus. The crest of Edmontosaurus regalis was made of just skin so it would have rotted away rather quickly before the fossilization process could have happened. Luckily this particular specimen retained it! It was probably full of blood vessels and would have been soft, maybe even floppy, in life. This sort of thing isn't unheard of in living relatives, either. Just look at birds like chickens and turkeys for instance. Some lizards, like Green Iguanas and certain agamids have soft crests as well.
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| My quick sketch-and-paint of Edmontosaurus ragalis' new look. |
So why would a dinosaur evolve such a thing? Well, the easy answer could always be display. (When in doubt just say display.) It's why a lot of extant animals have them. It could be possible that only the males had them, or possibly had larger ones which would go along with what you would find in chickens and iguanas. A soft crest like that could also help regulate the animal's body temperature. Within the crest, blood would be closer to the outside air, and cool off more easily. Then this blood would be circulated back into the body, thus helping to cool the whole animal off. Chickens do this with their crests, called crowns, and many mammals also do this with their ears. This is why a lot of desert mammals have large ears.
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| All of these animals use body parts made of soft tissue for either display and/or thermoregulation. It is possible Edmontosaurus evolved its soft crest for similar purposes. |
Although this is pretty exciting, this doesn't in any way make up for the fact that Tsintaosaurus lost its hilarious penis-shaped crest. Nice try, science, but I'm still mad at you!
References
Bell, Fanti, Currie & Arbour. 2013. A Mummified Duck-Billed Dinosaur with a Soft-Tissue Cock’s Comb. Current Biology http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.11.008
Monday, December 9, 2013
Siats: Prehistoric Animal of the Week
Allow me to apologize for the delay. Yesterday I had been on a plane and when I arrived home I sat at my computer to complete this post...and fell asleep at the keyboard. Normally I sleep on planes but that time I had not for some reason. Again I apologize.
This week belongs to yet another recently discovered dinosaur! Only described last month, check out Siats meekerorum! Siats was a large, meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Utah, USA, and lived during the middle Cretaceous period, about 98 million years ago. The individual found would have been about thirty feet long from snout to tail. Experts believe this specimen was only a juvenile, however, and that Siats could have pushed forty feet as a fully grown adult! Its genus name is after a man-eating monster from the local Native American mythology, called a siats.
Unfortunately the known remains of Siats are only fragmentary but enough bones were salvaged for experts to identify it as a member of the the allosauroid family. It would have been closely related to dinosaurs such as Acrocanthosaurus, and to a lesser extent, Allosaurus and Saurophaganax. These predatory dinosaurs typically had three fingers on each hand tipped with long hook-shaped claws. They also had serrated blade-like teeth adapted for slicing chunks of meat off carcasses...or still living victims.
Siats was an important find because of its allosauroid status. All the known large predatory dinosaurs from later times in North America were Tyrannosauroids like Teratophoneus, Lythronax and eventually at the very end of the Cretaceous, Tyrannosaurus rex to name just a few. All the large predators known before it, however, were other allosauroids. Before the discovery of Siats, the middle Cretaceous of North America was sort of a mystery ecosystem which paleontologists had not found many fossils from at all. Siats brings us one step closer to knowing what it was really like back then by telling us that allosauroids were going strong and were as big as ever at least until 98 million years ago.
That's all for this week! Join us next Sunday for another prehistoric animal of the week! Hopefully it will be yet another newly discovered species! (if I can paint it fast enough) As always comment below or on our facebook page!
References
Zanno, L. E.; Makovicky, P. J. (2013). "Neovenatorid theropods are apex predators in the Late Cretaceous of North America". Nature Communications 4. doi:10.1038/ncomms3827.
This week belongs to yet another recently discovered dinosaur! Only described last month, check out Siats meekerorum! Siats was a large, meat-eating dinosaur that lived in what is now Utah, USA, and lived during the middle Cretaceous period, about 98 million years ago. The individual found would have been about thirty feet long from snout to tail. Experts believe this specimen was only a juvenile, however, and that Siats could have pushed forty feet as a fully grown adult! Its genus name is after a man-eating monster from the local Native American mythology, called a siats.
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| How a living Siats meekerorum may have looked. Illustration by Christopher DiPiazza. |
Unfortunately the known remains of Siats are only fragmentary but enough bones were salvaged for experts to identify it as a member of the the allosauroid family. It would have been closely related to dinosaurs such as Acrocanthosaurus, and to a lesser extent, Allosaurus and Saurophaganax. These predatory dinosaurs typically had three fingers on each hand tipped with long hook-shaped claws. They also had serrated blade-like teeth adapted for slicing chunks of meat off carcasses...or still living victims.
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| Some of the bones unearthed belonging to Siats. |
Siats was an important find because of its allosauroid status. All the known large predatory dinosaurs from later times in North America were Tyrannosauroids like Teratophoneus, Lythronax and eventually at the very end of the Cretaceous, Tyrannosaurus rex to name just a few. All the large predators known before it, however, were other allosauroids. Before the discovery of Siats, the middle Cretaceous of North America was sort of a mystery ecosystem which paleontologists had not found many fossils from at all. Siats brings us one step closer to knowing what it was really like back then by telling us that allosauroids were going strong and were as big as ever at least until 98 million years ago.
That's all for this week! Join us next Sunday for another prehistoric animal of the week! Hopefully it will be yet another newly discovered species! (if I can paint it fast enough) As always comment below or on our facebook page!
References
Zanno, L. E.; Makovicky, P. J. (2013). "Neovenatorid theropods are apex predators in the Late Cretaceous of North America". Nature Communications 4. doi:10.1038/ncomms3827.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Concept Sketches: Reveal
Two weeks ago I shared with you some of my concept sketches that would later give rise to actual paintings. Then I said I would reveal which paintings specifically they were in the following week...which I did not because it was Thanksgiving and I was busy with family stuff. Sorry.
Lets check out the results!
The first sketch I showed you actually included three now completed paintings.
This sheet included...
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Then I showed you this page which had a bit more going on.
It included...
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Lets check out the results!
The first sketch I showed you actually included three now completed paintings.
This sheet included...
Liopleurodon...
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and Oviraptor.
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Here they are all next to their original sketches!
Then I showed you this page which had a bit more going on.
It included...
Anatotitan...
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Protoceratops (humping)...
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and Saurophaganax.
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Again, here they are with their sketches as well.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Tsintaosaurus: Prehistoric Animal of the Week
Today, we are looking at Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus! Tsintaosaurus lived in what is now China during the Late Cretaceous, about 70 million years ago. Its name translates to "Tsintao (city in China where it was discovered, now called Qingdao) Lizard Spike Nose". It was a hadrosaur, or "duck-billed dinosaur", sporting the typical broad bill in the front of its skull and hundreds of small teeth in the back of its mouth to help it eat plants. Tsintaosaurus measured about thirty feet long from snout to tail and could have walked on all fours or just its hind legs if it needed to.
There were many interesting hadrosaurs sporting fancy crests atop their skulls. The function of these crests has been explained on here before. When the remains of Tsintaosaurus were first discovered back in the nineteen fifties the skull had a long, skinny, rod-shaped piece of bone jutting out from the front. It sort of looked like a unicorn's horn...or an erect penis. Then paleo-artists from across the globe got together and had a big, fancy, official paleo-artist meeting where they agreed to ALWAYS depict Tsintaosaurus having two round, inflatable air sacs under its crest so that the whole thing looked like an erect penis and testicles dangling atop the poor creature's face. They also all agreed to make Tsintaosaurus green...ALWAYS green. Seriously, google search images of Tsintaosaurus. All you will get is green dinosaurs with bright orange or yellow dongs on their heads. (I am also guilty of having colored this animal green in a reconstruction from 2010 but I was pretty reserved on the testicle sacs trend I am proud to say.)
Tsintaousaurus proudly rocked this phallic crest until the early nineties when a few paleontologists proposed that this rod-shaped piece of bone was actually supposed to be attached to the snout and had just gotten bent and warped during the fossilization process. For a few years after that poor Tsintaosaurus had no interesting crest at all until more specimens were discovered, all sporting the same pointy unicorn crests. This proved that it was not just a part of the snout after all. Yay!
It wasn't until a few weeks ago in 2013 that information was released about some new Tsintaosaurus fossils that were found. As it turns out, there were actually a lot of missing pieces that would have attached to the original rod-shaped bone which was only one part of a bigger, more complex structure. Tsintaosaurus in reality would have had a more broad, curvy crest that started at the snout and went all around behind the head. It looks like the pope's hat. If the term "pope dinosaur" catches on to describe Tsintaosaurus remember, you heard it here first!
This most recent discovery tells us more about Tsintaosaurus than just how it looked. The new crest bones suggest that Tsintaosaurus would have had hollow chambers within for making loud noises much like the mechanics of a brass musical instrument. Previously it was believed that Tsintaosaurus may have been related to hadrosaurs with solid crests devoid of hollow chambers and tubes or no crests at all. We now think it was closer to hadrosaurs like Parasaurolophus which did possess hollow tubes within a large crest.
All that being said I decided to paint an updated reconstruction of Tsintaosaurus with the new crest and no hint of green whatsoever! Behold!
That's all for this week! As always please comment below or on our facebook page.
References
Prieto-Márquez, A.; Wagner J.R. (2013). "The ‘Unicorn’ Dinosaur That Wasn’t: A New Reconstruction of the Crest of Tsintaosaurus and the Early Evolution of the Lambeosaurine Crest and Rostrum.". PLoS ONE 8 (11): e82268. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0082268. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
Young, C.-C., 1958, "The dinosaurian remains of Laiyang, Shantung", Palaeontologia Sinica, New Series C, Whole Number 42(16): 1-138
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| Tsintaosaurus skeletal mount. |
There were many interesting hadrosaurs sporting fancy crests atop their skulls. The function of these crests has been explained on here before. When the remains of Tsintaosaurus were first discovered back in the nineteen fifties the skull had a long, skinny, rod-shaped piece of bone jutting out from the front. It sort of looked like a unicorn's horn...or an erect penis. Then paleo-artists from across the globe got together and had a big, fancy, official paleo-artist meeting where they agreed to ALWAYS depict Tsintaosaurus having two round, inflatable air sacs under its crest so that the whole thing looked like an erect penis and testicles dangling atop the poor creature's face. They also all agreed to make Tsintaosaurus green...ALWAYS green. Seriously, google search images of Tsintaosaurus. All you will get is green dinosaurs with bright orange or yellow dongs on their heads. (I am also guilty of having colored this animal green in a reconstruction from 2010 but I was pretty reserved on the testicle sacs trend I am proud to say.)
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| Nothing but green dinosaurs with dick-and-balls crests all around. Big photo is of the hilarious plastic model by the company, CollectA. It's pretty much the crowned jewel of my plastic dinosaur collection. |
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| Diagram of a more complete Tsintaosaurus skull from the 2013 paper. |
It wasn't until a few weeks ago in 2013 that information was released about some new Tsintaosaurus fossils that were found. As it turns out, there were actually a lot of missing pieces that would have attached to the original rod-shaped bone which was only one part of a bigger, more complex structure. Tsintaosaurus in reality would have had a more broad, curvy crest that started at the snout and went all around behind the head. It looks like the pope's hat. If the term "pope dinosaur" catches on to describe Tsintaosaurus remember, you heard it here first!
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| I illustrated a little timeline. |
This most recent discovery tells us more about Tsintaosaurus than just how it looked. The new crest bones suggest that Tsintaosaurus would have had hollow chambers within for making loud noises much like the mechanics of a brass musical instrument. Previously it was believed that Tsintaosaurus may have been related to hadrosaurs with solid crests devoid of hollow chambers and tubes or no crests at all. We now think it was closer to hadrosaurs like Parasaurolophus which did possess hollow tubes within a large crest.
All that being said I decided to paint an updated reconstruction of Tsintaosaurus with the new crest and no hint of green whatsoever! Behold!
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| Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus by Christopher DiPiazza. |
That's all for this week! As always please comment below or on our facebook page.
References
Prieto-Márquez, A.; Wagner J.R. (2013). "The ‘Unicorn’ Dinosaur That Wasn’t: A New Reconstruction of the Crest of Tsintaosaurus and the Early Evolution of the Lambeosaurine Crest and Rostrum.". PLoS ONE 8 (11): e82268. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0082268. Retrieved 23 November 2013.
Young, C.-C., 1958, "The dinosaurian remains of Laiyang, Shantung", Palaeontologia Sinica, New Series C, Whole Number 42(16): 1-138