Happy Tuesday Friends! Over the last few weeks we have covered a lot of Dino-related info, from the T-Rex to the Pachycephalosaurus. I appreciate the interest you all have shown in the world of dinosaurs!
Many of you have have left thought provoking and intriguing comments and I have enjoyed reading and responding to all of them. Because of this, I thought we should have an experiment this week.
For the next week, feel free to ask me about anything, or respond to other threads or messages. The hope is that we can have fun and share interesting facts about dinosaurs!
If this goes well, maybe we have more group discussions like this in the future 🙂
Thank you all for taking the time to read my little blog. Enjoy the rest of your week and don’t forget to comment below!
Triassic Period: Coelophysis– I have a lifesize figure of one in my living room.
Jurassic Period: Apatosaurus — I have 5′ 7″ femur from one in my living room, a gift from my husband
Cretaceous Period: Triceratops — All I have from it is a horn from its brow, but I’ve always like it best.
If you were being hunted by a dinosaur (pick any meat eater) how would you use your knowledge of dinosaurs to evade the predator and possibly even knock it in the noggin?
If you could have a dinosaur as a pet, which one would you choose and why?
Does it bother you when someone accuses another person of being out of date and says, “You are such a dinosaur”? Is that kind of a slam on dinosaurs?
You needn’t reply to all my questions. Pick the one(s) you like.
Thanks for your questions!
To avoid T-rex, the last thing you want to do is stand still. If you’re a good runner, you can out-distance it. It takes very large steps, but it was probably too heavy to run for an extended period of time.
I would like a Triceratops. They’ve always been my favorite.
Telling someone they’re a dinosaur is actually a compliment and not just because they’re awesome. They managed to live on Earth for 120 million years — not bad survival skills. People wouldn’t have managed any better in the face of that asteroid.
As we transition into the fall, I thought it would be fun to reminisce on one of my favorite summer vacations.
One of the best adventures of my life occurred one summer when my family and I spent a week in western Colorado. During two of those days, we joined a dinosaur dig. It was very hot and dirty. Insects swarmed us, the nearest porta-potty was a half mile away – and I never had more fun in my life!
The paleontologist in charge of the dig, Jim Kirkland, told us where to dig and what to do. The area we dug in was a vast bone bed dating to about 150 million years ago, during the late Jurassic (one of the three time periods during which dinosaurs lived). Many dinosaurs had died, perhaps in a flood, and had their bodies swept into this huge heap. Their bones were all jumbled together. Diggers in that area have found bones from Brachiosaurus, Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, Apatosaurus, and other Jurassic dinosaurs. We would not get to keep any bones we found. They would stay with the paleontologists for study, as they should.
The rock was crumbly, like flaky pastry, and easily removed with just our hands. We searched through it and then discarded the rock into plastic bins. It’s not always easy to tell what’s rock and what’s bone, but at this site the rock was a light brown and the bones much darker brown, almost black. We moved a lot of rock before we saw anything. (Caption: That’s my husband, John, in striped shirt, my son, Patrick, in red cap, and Jim Kirkland in cowboy hat.)
That thrill, though, when you see a bone that’s been buried for 150 million years is not like anything else. It was definitely worth the hours of digging. I felt awed and elated and also a little humble. I’m a tiny speck in this universe. You know, we also spent two days white water rafting while we were in Colorado, but digging up dinosaur bones was more exhilarating!
During those two days digging I only found three bones, but one of them in particular interested Dr. Kirkland (in red shirt at left; me in blue). It looked like a piece of armor from an armored dinosaur, but at that point no one had ever found an armored dinosaur in Jurassic rock. Further excavation after I left produced more of that dinosaur, and it turned out to be just what Dr. Kirkland suspected: an armored dinosaur, the first ever found from the Jurassic Period. He named it Mymoorapelta and wrote to me about it. He also put out a press release, and I got my picture on the front page of the local newspaper!
Dr. Kirkland is now the state paleontologist of Utah.
Mymoorapelta is a nodosaur, which means, among other things, that it doesn’t have a club at the end of its tail. It was one of the earliest armored dinosaurs ever to have lived, and, at 9.8 feet long, one of the smallest. It ate mostly plants that grew low to the ground, such as ferns, cycads, and conifers. Its teeth were small and leaf-shaped. Scientists can’t say for sure, but it is likely that it lived in herds.
I will leave you with this question: If you found a new dinosaur, what would you name it? Please let me know in the comment section.
I don’t know who makes up the names for groups of animals: a herd of cows, a pack of wolves, or a litter of kittens. Some of the group names are funny: a business of ferrets, a kettle of hawks, a bloat of hippopotami, a shiver of sharks, a stench of skunks, and an ambush of tigers. But whoever makes up those names certainly got it right for Tyrannosaurus. A group of them is called a terror of tyrannosaurs. Several species of dinosaur fall into the category of tyrannosaur, such as Albertosaurus, Gorgosaurus, and Daspletosaurus. The most famous, of course, is Tyrannosaurus rex. All of them are among the largest meat-eating creatures that ever lived.
Scientists don’t know whether or not Tyrannosaurus lived or travelled in groups. There are only two clues that could help with this. Sometimes paleontologists find bonebeds that contain many dinosaurs of the same kind that all died at the same time. That might happen if a flash flood killed a large herd of animals. For example, in Alberta, Canada, thousands of bones of the dinosaur Centrosaurus were found in a bonebed measuring about 1 ½ square miles. This is strong evidence that centrosaurs travelled in large groups. Dinosaur bonebeds for Protoceratops, Avimimus, Pinacosaurus, Edmontosaurus, and others have been found. But no bonebeds of Tyrannosaurus or any other tyrannosaur have ever been discovered.
The other evidence of animals living or travelling in groups is footprints. Often just one, single footprint is found. Other times a trackway is found, showing the progress of a single dinosaur.
Sometimes there are many footprints, showing the travels of a whole herd. Prior to 2011, only single footprints of tyrannosaurs had been found. Though it’s hard to say for sure which made a footprint, scientists can make educated guesses. The one most confidently attributed to Tyrannosaurus rex was found in Montana in 2007. The Montana footprint was 2 ½ feet long with slender toes, and it was found in the right age of rock for Tyrannosaurus. Also, its toes were correctly positioned for T-rex, so paleontologists are fairly certain they have correctly identified it. But that print doesn’t tell us much about how Tyrannosaurus lived and moved.
Some scientists thought that because they had never found a tyrannosaur bonebed or more than one footprint of a tyrannosaur that Tyrannosaurus was a solitary creature, perhaps only associating with others of its kind for mating. Many of today’s predatory birds, such as eagles and hawks, are largely solitary. That way they don’t have to compete for food. But in 2011 a trackway showing three tyrannosaurs walking together made scientists reconsider the idea of tyrannosaurs as loners.
In the forests of northeastern British Columbia, paleontologists uncovered a series of tracks showing three large dinosaurs walking side by side. A total of seven footprints were found: three from one dinosaur and two from each of the other two, but all the footprints were made at the same time, and they are clearly walking together. The prints are so well preserved that scientists can even see scales on the dinosaurs’ feet. The size of the tracks and the size and positioning of the toes clearly make these tyrannosaur tracks. However, it’s not possible to know which species of tyrannosaur they are from.
McCrea RT, Buckley LG, Farlow JO, Lockley MG, Currie PJ, Matthews NA, et al. (2014) A ‘Terror of Tyrannosaurs’: The First Trackways of Tyrannosaurids and Evidence of Gregariousness and Pathology in Tyrannosauridae. PLoS ONE 9(7): e103613. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103613
The size of the footprints does indicate that the creatures were of a similar age, different scientists estimating perhaps 25, 26, and 29 years old. The size also indicates their approximate height: 7.5 to 9.4 feet tall, measured at the hip. Dinosaur height is usually measured at the hip because most of them didn’t hold their heads at a consistent height. By knowing the height of the animal and measuring how far apart the footprints are, scientists can determine how fast the dinosaurs were going. When scientists did the math for these footprints, they concluded that these three dinosaurs were going 3.9 to 5.2 m.p.h. However, in 2021 researchers from the Netherlands made a computer reconstruction of a Tyrannosaurus walking, and they concluded that its top speed was only about 3 m.p.h. More evidence is needed to figure out how fast a tyrannosaur could walk.
Still the trackways give a tantalizing look at the life of a tyrannosaur, no longer a loner, but a friendly guy who liked to hang out with his terror of friends.
Make up a name for a group of you and your friends. Please put it in the comments below!
Burns, M. E., T. A. Tumanova and Philip J. Currie. “Postcrania of Juvenile Pinacosaurus grangeri (Ornithischia: Ankylosauria) from the Upper Cretaceous Alagteeg Formation, Alag Teeg, Mongolia: Implications for Ontogenetic Allometry in Ankylosaurs.” Journal of Paleontology. 2015. Vol. 89, pp. 168-182. https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/jpaleontol/ article-abstract/89/1/168/139797/Postcrania-of-juvenile-Pinacosaurus-grangeri.
Evans, D. C., D. A. Eberth, and M. J. Ryan. “Hadrosaurid (Edmontosaurus) Bonebeds from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation (Horsethief Member) at Drumheller, Alberta, Canada: Geology, Preliminary Taphonomy, and Significance.” Canadian Journal of Earth Science. 2015. Vol. 52, pp. 642–654. https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/cjes-2014-0184?download=true.
McCrea R.T., L.G. Buckley, J.O. Farlow, M.G. Lockley, P.J. Currie, et al. “A ‘Terror of Tyrannosaurs’: The First Trackways of Tyrannosaurids and Evidence of Gregariousness and Pathology in Tyrannosauridae.” 30 July 2014. PLoS ONE Vol. 9, p. 7: e103613. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.01036
Title Image: Stock photo shows a dinosaur footprint in the ground. Footprints in Texas have been revealed as drought persists. NEENAWAT/GETTY
Everybody knows where you find mummies – in pyramids in Egypt. But not always. People made the Egyptian mummies, but under just the right conditions, Mother Nature can make them, too. A few, very rare dinosaur mummies have been found. Not just a skeleton but a fossil with skin and soft tissue preserved.
To become a mummy, a dinosaur that died would first need to be protected somehow from predators, so they couldn’t tear it apart. That could happen in a number of ways. The dinosaur could die in a place away from predators or be covered over with water from a flood or a giant mudslide. Some could be covered by the collapse of a sand dune.
Being away from predators isn’t enough. Minerals need to soak into the skin and soft tissue before they have a chance to decay. It helps if the dinosaur is covered with something that slows down the microbes that cause that decay, such as certain kinds of mud. It also helps to have the right kind of skin. Some scientists have suggested that the reason most of the dinosaur mummies that have been found are duckbilled dinosaurs is that there was something in their skin that slowed down decay, giving the skin time to fossilize.
The first dinosaur mummy was found in Wyoming in 1908. It was an Edmontosaurus (ed-MON-to-SAWR-us), a duckbill dinosaur common in the late Cretaceous. Though it’s hard to see in this picture, almost 2/3 of the body is still covered with skin. The skin consists of very small scales, less than two tenths of an inch in diameter. Unlike those of many reptiles, the scales are more like separate bumps than overlapping scales.
The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Henry Fairfield Osborn, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Different sizes are clustered together. The scales on the upper side of the body are larger than those on the lower side. Soft tissue between the claws on its hands suggests that it had padded feet, and tissue above the spine suggests it had a soft ridge along the back of the neck and spine.
The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Several other duckbill dinosaur mummies were found during the 1900s, but they didn’t have as much preserved soft tissue or skin. The next dinosaur mummy of any importance was not found until 2000 when scientists in Montana unearthed a Brachylophosaurus (BRACK-uh-LOF-o-SAWR-us), which is another type of duckbilled dinosaur. They named it Leonardo (nearby graffiti from 1916 said that Leonard loved Geneva). This mummy was 90% complete and revealed that the neck had unusually strong muscles and that its skin was scaly, similar to Edmontosaurus. Scientists were able to examine the contents of its stomach. It ate leaves, conifers, ferns, and flowering plants like magnolias. Its stomach also revealed parasites – small bristly worms.
Probably the most spectacular dinosaur mummy of all was discovered in 2011 in Alberta, Canada. It is Borealopelta (BORE-e-AL-o-PEL-ta), not a duckbilled dinosaur but a nodosaur, an armored dinosaur. In life it was 18 feet long and weighed about 3000 pounds. The back legs and tail are missing, but what is there is amazing. The skin was so well preserved that scientists were able to use a mass spectrometer to find out what the color of the dinosaur was.
The back and sides of the dinosaur were a dark reddish brown, while the belly was a lighter reddish brown. We see that pattern of coloring, ark on top and light underneath, in many animals today. It helps those animals hide from predators. Not only was the skin well preserved, but also the armor itself. Usually, the armor falls off armored dinosaurs before they fossilize. Sometimes pieces of armor are found nearby, but often they aren’t. This mummy shows exactly where and how every piece of armor was attached. In addition, scientists have learned that the spikes were covered with keratin, the same stuff that fingernails are made of. This made the armor look bigger: the better to scare away predators – or perhaps to attract a mate.
No doubt additional exciting dinosaur mummies will be found in the future. A potential one, discovered in Montana in 2014, still lies encased in a 35,000-pound block of stone, waiting to be dug out. Each mummy helps fill in gaps in our knowledge of how dinosaurs looked and behaved.
Which do you like better? Egyptian mummies or dinosaur mummies? Let me know in the comment section below.
Greshko, Michael. “The Amazing Dinosaur Found (Accidentally) by Miners in Canada.” National Geographic. June 2017. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/ article/dinosaur-nodosaur-fossil-discovery
In the first movie of the Jurassic Park series, the second scariest dinosaur was Velociraptor. (Scariest? T-rex, of course.) The movie showed a creature that was about six feet tall, with a huge foot claw that it held upright. Its body was thick, like a tyrannosaur, it was highly intelligent, and it hunted in a pack during the day. Given that most of us like watching movies with scary creatures, a star was born. Overnight Velociraptor became famous.
But like many movies, Jurassic Park got it wrong. In fact, pretty much all of it was wrong. To start with, Velociraptor was little: only about three feet tall (one meter) measured at the hip. From the tip of its nose to the end of its tail, it measured about six feet (2 meters), but almost half of that length was its long, stiff tail. When Velociraptor was fully grown, it weighed only about 33 pounds (15 kg). A Great Dane, which is about the same height, can weigh up to 140 pounds (64 kg.).
Why is the height of a dinosaur measured at its hip?(Click Me)
Dinosaurs that walked on two legs didn’t stand upright. They leaned forward (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) and used their tail to balance their head. This means that the head wouldn’t always be at the same height. It could go up and down. But the legs of dinosaurs are directly under their bodies, so the measurement of height at the hip would always be the same.
The movie showed Velociraptor covered with scales, but scientists have found marks on the arm and tail bones of this dinosaur that show feathers were attached there. In fact, it’s likely their whole bodies were covered with feathers. However, though their arms may have looked like wings, Velociraptors weren’t capable of flight. Their arms were too short, and their bodies were too long. Instead, they walked on two legs.
If you’re now picturing a fluffy, cute, little dinosaur, think again. It would not make a good pet. It may have been only about the size of a Great Dane, but it was a fierce hunter. Its upright, sickle (curved in an arc) claw was about 2½ inches (6.5 cm.) long, measured around the outer edge. That’s not very big compared to that claw in the movies, but an eagle’s talons are only two inches long, and think of the damage it can do with those!
The movie did get it right that Velociraptor was a carnivore, a meat eater. It had a mouth full of very sharp, serrated (having a jagged edge , like a steak knife) teeth. Its head was flat with large eyes that enabled it to see very clearly. It also had great senses of smell and hearing. The three claws on each hand were very sharp. Each foot had sharp claws, too, including that famous sickle claw. This claw was held up off the ground, which kept it very sharp. Claws that scrape along the ground become dull.
The movie showed a highly intelligent, coordinated attack by a pack of Velociraptors in the daytime. However, none of that is true. First, Velociraptor was not that smart. Its brain was large compared to its body, but it’s a small body and a small brain. It was about as smart as a bird of prey, such as a hawk. Many modern mammals could have outthought it.
Next, it probably wasn’t a pack hunter. Strangely, it is their teeth that make some scientists think this. Scientists have analyzed the teeth of young Velociraptors and compared them to adult Velociraptors. They’ve found that the chemicals in each set of teeth are different. This is important information because in pack animals the chemical makeup of the teeth is usually the same because old and young share the same food.
Young animals which are not taken care of by their parents or the pack usually have different chemicals in their teeth than adults because they eat different food. They would eat lizards and insects, small creatures that a little dinosaur could catch. As an adult they’d eat bigger things. Young animals that have not been taken care of by their parents also tend not to hang out with others of their kind. And, dinosaurs are more closely related to reptiles and birds which generally do not hunt in packs. So, at least for right now, these facts have caused scientists to lean toward the theory that Velociraptor did not hunt in packs.
But whichever way it goes, it is certain that Velociraptor’s slim body and long legs made it a fast runner. It could run as fast as a roadrunner, maybe as fast as 25 mph (40 kph). Small prey, with their short legs, didn’t stand a chance of outrunning it. Their only chance of escaping lay in having a big head start because Velociraptor’s leg muscles weren’t strong enough to run really fast over a long distance.
Sometimes Velociraptor is shown in books and movies using its sickle claw to rip open its prey, but that isn’t likely. The claw could break through the skin of a dinosaur, but tests show it wasn’t strong enough or long enough to kill another animal. Most likely that claw was used to hold onto its prey while Velociraptor used its other claws and its teeth to kill. Hawks and various other birds of prey use their talons in this way.
Velociraptors also probably hunted at night, not in the day as in Jurassic Park. Scientists have noted that all birds and many reptiles alive today have a ring of bone around the eye. In those animals that hunt at night, the opening in the ring is large, to let in as much light as possible. Those that hunt in the day have a much smaller opening. Velociraptor has a large opening in its ring of bone. This makes it almost certain that it hunted at night. And that makes sense as the area Velociraptor lived in was mostly desert. It would want to hunt at night when it would be cooler. Its body wouldn’t overheat, and small creatures would be more likely to come out.
All in all, Velociraptor is not much like the creature in the movie that made it famous, but the real Velociraptor was still a deadly predator.
Which do you like better? The real Velociraptor or the one in the movie? Please let me know in the comments below.
Maxwell, W. Desmond, and John H. Ostrom. “Taphonomy and Paleobiological Implications of Tenontosaurus-Deinonychus Associations.” Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, vol. 15, no. 4, [Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, Taylor & Francis, Ltd.], 1995, pp. 707–12, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4523664.
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