Episode 446: Dinosaur-era Oceans and Darren Naish from Prehistoric Planet 2

Episode 446: Dinosaur-era Oceans and Darren Naish from Prehistoric Planet 2. Darren solutions our largest questions like why Dreadnoughtus had inflatable sacs on its neck (however not Alamosaurus) and why Masiakasaurus didn’t have enamel identified of its mouth.

Interview:

Darren Naish, a paleontologist, creator, science communicator, and founding father of Tetrapod Zoology. He’s additionally the scientific guide and advisor for Prehistoric Planet and Prehistoric Planet 2.

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The dinosaur of the day: Baptornis

• Associated to Hesperornis, and like Hesperornis, lived within the Western Inside Seaway
• Hesperornithiform that lived within the Late Cretaceous in what’s now Kansas (on the time was largely Western Inside Seaway), within the Niobrara Formation
• Additionally has been present in what’s now Sweden, the place the Turgai Strait joined the North Sea
• Appeared type of like a penguin, however with an extended neck and enamel
• Concerning the measurement of a loon. Loons are about 28 to 32 in (71 to 81 cm) lengthy and weigh about 9 to 12 lb (4 to five.5 kg)
• Good at diving and swimming
• Most likely an ideal swimmer, and never nice at shifting on land
• Decrease legs had been near its physique and the ft stretched out sideways, so would have toppled over if shifting upright
• Primarily based on how its decrease legs had been, would have pointed toes ahead and waddled or took small hops to maneuver round on land
• Ate fish. One specimen discovered with coprolites, about .4 in (1 cm) in diameter, and have stays of a fish
• Most likely hunted smaller, extra cell prey in comparison with its kin that had been bigger
• Held prey in its beak
• Hesperornithiforms could have been capable of maintain and switch their prey as they swallowed it head first
• Sort species is Baptornis advenus
• Genus identify means “diving chook”
• O.C. Marsh discovered the primary fossils within the 1870s, and named Baptornis in 1877
• Holotype consists of components of the foot, which in all probability belong to separate specimens. Now just one is the kind specimen
• In 1977, Larry Martin and Orville Bonner wrote a few fragmentary, immature Baptornis specimen (included vertebrae, pelvis, components of the legs and ft, components of the jaw)
• Different specimens have since been discovered, lots of them juveniles
• Younger specimen discovered was present in an space that will imply it both travelled a protracted distance from shore or it nested someplace close by (an island?)
• Many Baptornis specimens are remoted bones
• Solely 5 specimens have been discovered which have greater than a single bone/factor, although in 2015 Alyssa Bell and Luis Chiappe stated there could also be extra in museum collections
• Could have migrated, primarily based on fossils being discovered as far south as Kansas and as far north as Canada
• Lived in a subtropical to temperate local weather
• There was a second species of Baptornis: Baptornis varneri, named in 2007 by James Martin and Amanda Cordes-Individual. However later was reclassified as Brodavis, one other hesperornithiform that’s about twice the scale of Baptornis
• Fossils present in Sweden had been regarded as “Cretaceous flamingo” Parascaniornis stensioi (lived within the Late Cretaceous). However later was discovered to be Baptornis. Discovered a vertebra, so not sufficient to check and know if it’s a second species
• Discovered there wasn’t sufficient to make Parascaniornis its personal species, however nonetheless unclear if it’s a junior synonym of Baptornis

Enjoyable Truth:

Dinosaurs like Spinosaurus, Hesperornis, and others that lived in and round water in all probability had webbed ft.

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