Episode 453: Who destroyed the Central Park Dinosaurs?

Episode 453: Who destroyed the Central Park Dinosaurs? Boss Tweed has lengthy been blamed for vandalizing New York Metropolis’s model of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, however it seems another person was accountable.

Information:

• There’s a brand new neornithischian dinosaur, Minimocursor supply

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The dinosaur of the day: Anchiceratops

• Anchiceratops, request from Victrix by way of patreon/discord
• Chasmosaurine ceratopsid that lived within the Late Cretaceous in what’s now Alberta, Canada
• Appeared much like Triceratops
• Had two lengthy forehead horns and a brief nasal horn
• Frill was lengthy and rectangular, with triangular projections alongside the perimeters
• Stout and muscular, walked on all fours, had a brief tail, and a beak (which is what makes it a ceratopsian)
• Medium-sized
• Estimated to be as much as 14 ft (4.3 m) lengthy
• Estimated to weigh 1.2 tonnes
• Fossils first present in 1912 by Barnum Brown, alongside the Pink Deer River (discovered three partial skulls)
• Described in 1914 by Barnum Brown
• Holotype contains the again half of the cranium, and the lengthy frill
• Brown in 1914 wrote: “Apart from exhibiting a singular sort of crest this genus provides yet another hyperlink within the morphological chain by which the ceratopsian crest has been developed”
• Additionally made a forged of the mind, “that in accuracy of element has hardly ever been equaled in fossil crania”
• Sort and solely species is Anchiceratops ornatus
• Genus identify means “close to horned face” or “close to Ceratops”
• Brown thought Anchiceratops was a transitional dinosaur carefully associated (and in between) Monoclonius and Triceratops
• Species identify refers back to the ornamentation on its frill
• Charles M. Sternberg discovered an entire, extra slender cranium in 1924, which he described in 1929 because the second species Anchiceratops longirostris (however now Anchiceratops longirostris is taken into account to be a junior synonym of Anchiceratops ornatus)
• Most fossils discovered within the Horsehoe Canyon Formation, some discovered within the Oldman and Dinosaur Park Formations (could also be early Anchiceratops ornatus or a second species), and a few discovered on the St. Mary River Formation, however too fragmentary to discuss with a species
• Fossils additionally presumably discovered within the Almond Formation in Wyoming, U.S.
• One or two attainable bonebeds present in Alberta, however hasn’t been described
• Ten skulls discovered
• Skulls present particular person variation, although up to now paleontologists thought the variations have been as a result of sexual dimorphism (the bigger skulls with longer horns have been males)
• Variation within the skulls (measurement of horns and frill) might be as a result of ontogeny (modified because it grew up)
• One specimen had 30 tail vertebrae (most chasmosaurs have 46 tail vertebrae), an extended pelvis, and lengthy neck. Nonetheless, this specimen (NMC 8547) may very well be Arrhinoceratops. If that’s the case, there hasn’t actually been any Anchiceratops skeletons described (solely skulls)
• Mallon in 2010 stated the skeleton Sternberg collected in 1925 was full and articulated and Sternberg attributed it to Anchiceratops, “though he didn’t give a purpose for his identification”
• Lived in a subtropical local weather
• Different dinosaurs that lived across the similar time and place included maniraptorans akin to Epichirostenotes, ornithomimids akin to Ornithomimus, pachycephalosaurids akin to Sphaerotholus, hadrosaurs akin to Edmontosaurus, ceratopsians akin to Pachyrhinosaurus, and tyrannosaurs akin to Albertosaurus
• Anchiceratops fossils present in marine sediments, so might have lived in estuaries (the place rivers meet ocean or bigger our bodies of water)
• In 1959 Wann Langston Jr. steered Anchiceratops was semi-aquatic, with its lengthy snout serving to it to stroll by deeper swamps and its frill to assist it counterbalance and level its beak upwards so it may take breaths, and that its quick tail, massive physique, and stocky limbs made it sluggish and it might have “loved relative seclusion and safety of a swampy setting”
• Most paleontologists didn’t agree, however Jordan Mallon steered NMC 8547 was like a contemporary hippo, and that’s why it was so strong and muscular (although the small tail didn’t assist). Its physique sort might have helped it transfer by muddy, lowland swamps
• Mallon wrote: “It’s attainable that different ceratopsids have been additionally tailored to semi-aquatic life, because the clade shares a number of options in frequent with the hippo. You will need to restrict hypothesis by way of reference to circumstantial sedimentology, nonetheless, as a number of ceratopsids are recognized from well-drained alluvial settings”
• Anchiceratops ornatus species lasted about 1.5 to 2 million years
• Different ceratopsid species lasted a very long time (Triceratops horridus for 1.5 million years and Pentaceratops sternbergi for two.5 million years) however within the Dinosaur Park Formation the place Anchiceratops was discovered, most species lasted about 700,000 years
• Species lived for a very long time, presumably as a result of there wasn’t as a lot dinosaur variety within the Horseshoe Canyon Formation, and there wasn’t as a lot competitors for meals. Or might be as a result of the Western Inside Seaway was shrinking, so there wasn’t as a lot habitat fragmentation so Anchiceratops appears to have lasted longer. Or it might be Anchiceratops was good at coping with environmental modifications

Enjoyable Truth:

Boss Tweed wasn’t the wrongdoer behind the smashing of the Central Park dinosaurs.

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