Famous Canadian Palaeontologist Plans to Track Down Troodon

Professor Phil Currie (University of Alberta) is making plans for next summer, they include an expedition to hunt for a complete skeleton of the fast-running member of the dinosaur clade Deinonychosauria.  Phil Currie is hoping to hunt down Troodon.

Professor Phil Currie – Next Year Hunting for Troodon

With “the best-preserved baby horned dinosaur ever found”, but will Phil Currie find a Troodon?

Picture credit: Bruce Edwards (from a video interview)

Troodon Dinosaur Fossil

Troodontids are a group of small theropod dinosaurs that seem to fall somewhere in the phylogeny of the Dinosauria between the ornithomimids and the fearsome dromaeosaurids.  Troodon, may have been typical of this group, being fast-running, between two to three metres long (mostly tail), having a small skull with a long snout, large eyes and a big brain.  Relative to its body size, the species Troodon inequalis has the largest brain of any mature dinosaur yet described.  However, this genus is only known from a few specimens, and no complete skeleton of this dinosaur has ever been discovered.

An Illustration of a Troodontid (Troodon formosus)

An illustration of the feathered dinosaur Troodon.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

A Typical Member of the Troodon Family of Dinosaurs (Scale Drawing)

A scale drawing of a typical member of the Troodontidae dinosaur family.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

For articulated replicas of troodontids and other members of the Maniraptora: Beasts of the Mesozoic Articulated Prehistoric Animal Figures.

Professor Phil Currie

Phil Currie, hopes to change all that and by doing so, help to assign with greater confidence, the various dinosaur genera associated with the Troodontidae family.  The family tree certainly needs some revision, after all the Troodon genus was originally set up on the basis of the description of a single fossil tooth (albeit a very distinctive tooth).

The famous Canadian palaeontologist, will lead a field team to the County of Grande Prairie (north-western Alberta, Canada) setting up a major dig in the Pipestone Creek area.  The rocks in this area were laid down in the Late Cretaceous and a number of bedding planes contain extensive bonebeds.  There have already been several important theropod dinosaur discoveries made in this area, for example, earlier this year Everything Dinosaur published an article on the newly described, dog-sized, meat-eating dinosaur Boreonykus, which has been assigned to the Velociraptorinae sub-family of the Dromaeosaur family.

To read more about this new dinosaur discovery: Boreonykus certekorum A Polar Dinosaur Related to Velociraptor.

Searching the Grande Prairie Area

The teeth, which are relatively small, are easily identified thanks to their very large, hook-like serrations.  Isolated broken teeth are quite frequently found in the Grande Prairie area, but articulated bones and a fully intact skeleton are what the research team will be hoping to find.

Phil Currie explained:

“We find its teeth [Troodon] all the time up in the Grande Prairie region, yet in the rest of Alberta, it’s a pretty rare dinosaur.”

The Hunt for a Complete Troodon Fossil Specimen

Bones and teeth that have been assigned to the Troodontidae family have been found across North America and also in Asia, but despite the wealth of fossil material (mainly teeth), Professor Currie estimates that 90% of the bones in a Troodon skeleton remain unknown to science.

The Grande Prairie region could be just the spot to find the rest of the skeleton.  Many of the bedding planes where fossils are found represent low energy environments, which can aid the preservation of tiny bones such as those from a small, fast-running troodontid.  If lizards and mammals are preserved in these sediments then a three-metre-long, light and fragile Troodon might have been preserved too.

The Professor commented:

“It’s a big deal, because the more fragile skeletons tend to break apart, especially if there is a river nearby with a powerful current.  If you are an animal that’s falling apart because you’re rotten your big bones are not going to be washed very far by a river, but your small bones will be washed a long way.  Because small animals are being preserved there, we hope to find small dinosaurs as well.”

In the summer of 2017, a field team will descend on the Pipestone Creek bonebeds with the aim of identifying small fauna.  A team of Chinese palaeontologists, who have studied Asian troodontids are expected to join the researchers.

North-western Alberta in the Late Cretaceous – A Cretaceous Cross Roads

The northern part of Alberta has proved to be a happy hunting ground for vertebrate palaeontologists with a number of significant dinosaur discoveries having been made in the area.  The Upper Cretaceous rocks record important aspects of the region’s Late Cretaceous biota.  It seems that during this time in Earth’s history, North America was connected to Asia and a faunal interchange probably took place.

Several families of Asian dinosaurs have never been found in Canada, but Professor Currie is confident that one day, palaeontologists will uncover further evidence of this faunal interchange between the linked continents of Asia and North America.

Phil Currie, optimistically concluded:

“One of these days, I think we are going to find some, the potential is definitely there.”

Team members at Everything Dinosaur look forward to reporting on the research team’s progress.

Visit the Everything Dinosaur website: Visit Everything Dinosaur.

Keratin and Melanosomes Preserved in Eoconfuciusornis

A team of international scientists led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in collaboration with colleagues from North Carolina State University and Linyi University (Shandong, China), have reported finding the oldest fossil evidence of beta-keratin and melanosome preservation in the feathers of a 130-million-year-old primitive bird from the famous Early Cretaceous Jehol Biota of north-eastern China.

Keratin and Melanosomes Preserved in Eoconfuciusornis

Writing in the journal “The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (United States)”, this new study extends the time frame in which evidence of original organic molecules may be preserved and has provided new data on how to distinguish melanosome structures from similarly shaped microbes.  This is the second article related to the melanosomes having been identified in ancient birds that Everything Dinosaur has published the week.  The earlier article related to a bird fossil identified as a member of the Enantiornithes clade excavated from the Lower Cretaceous strata (Jiufotang Formation), that showed evidence of iridescence in its feathers.*  It’s almost as if stories relating to melanosome structures in birds are flocking together!

The Lower Cretaceous rocks exposed in the Chinese provinces of Hebei and Liaoning have provided palaeontologists with a huge number of vertebrate fossils to study.  The fine-grained strata, laid down in a lacustrine (lake environment), surrounding by active volcanoes provided ideal body fossil preservation conditions and many specimens have revealed exquisite details.  One of the most important group of fossils associated with these deposits are the many different types of bird fossil that have been found.   This new study was carried out on the fossilised remains of one such primitive bird, a specimen of Eoconfuciusornis.

Scanning Transmission Microscopy

Scanning transmission microscopy was undertaken to identify structures within the fossil and the surrounding matrix, chemical analysis including the use of antibodies that react to specific proteins, helped pinpoint the identity of the structures that had been found.

The Fossilised Remains of Eoconfuciusornis Used in the Research

The fossilised remains of a Lower Cretaceous bird from China (Eoconfuciusornis).

Picture credit: Dr Xiaoli Wang (Linyi University)

For models and replicas of Chinese prehistoric animals including confuciusornithids: Dinosaur Models and Figures (PNSO).

What Sort of Bird was Eoconfuciusornis?

Eoconfuciusornis was a crow-sized member of the primitive bird group the confuciusornithids that thrived in China during the Early Cretaceous.  It was one of the first birds to possess a pygostyle (the last five tail vertebrae fused together) and to have a keratinous beak lacking teeth, features found in all modern birds (Neornithes).

Previous studies had striven to prove that tiny, round or sausage-shaped structures preserved in association with fossilised remains were melanosomes, organelles found in animal cells that contains the light-absorbing pigment melanin responsible for colour and protection from harmful rays emitted from the sun.

However, although melanosome-like structures had been discovered in a number of specimens, there was an element of doubt as to the authenticity of the research findings.  It was difficult to definitively proved that these structures were not just microbes that had become associated with the feathers during decomposition and fossilisation.

Studying Melanosomes

Mary Schweitzer, a leader in the field of identifying traces of organic materials from within the fossil record and a co-author of this research paper explained the problem:

“If these small bodies are melanosomes, they should be embedded in a keratinous matrix, since feathers contain beta-keratin.  If we couldn’t find the keratin, then those structures could as easily be microbes, or a mix of microbes and melanosomes, in either case, predictions of dinosaur shading would not be accurate.”

The scientists used both scanning and transmission electron microscopy to map minute details of the feather’s surface and its internal structure.  They also utilised immunogold tagging, a technique which involves gold, non-reactive particles being attached to antibodies that bind to particular proteins in order to make them visible in electron microscopy.  This helped to show that the fine filaments within the feathers were keratin.

An Illustration of a Typical Confuciusornithid Bird of the Lower Cretaceous (Confuciusornis sanctus)

Confuciusornis sanctus a primitive bird but it had a beak.

Picture credit: University of Manchester

Mapping Chemical Elements

Further tests were carried out, including one which involved the mapping of the presence of copper and sulphur in association with the feathers when viewed under high resolution.  Sulphur was broadly distributed, reflecting its presence in both melanin molecules and keratin.  However, the distribution of copper (only found in modern melanosomes and not part of keratin), was only observed in the fossil melanosome structures.  The data produced supports the identity of melanosomes and indicates that these structures are not the result of contamination or microbial action.

Fellow author, Yanhong Pan (Chinese Academy of Sciences) stated:

“This study is the first to demonstrate evidence for both keratin and melanosomes, using structural, chemical and molecular methods.  These methods have the potential to help us understand, on the molecular level, how and why feathers evolved in these lineages.”

If melanosomes can be positively identified within the fossil record and as the shape of melanosomes can provide an indication of animal colouration, then palaeontologists may be able to hypothesise with greater confidence the colouration of extinct animals including dinosaurs and primitive birds.

* To read Everything Dinosaur’s recently published article on the study of a member of the Enantiornithes clade that shows evidence of iridescence in preserved feathers: A Prehistoric Bird with Bling.

The scientific paper: “Molecular Evidence of Keratin and Melanosomes in Feathers of the Early Cretaceous Bird Eoconfuciusornis”, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (United States of America).

The Everything Dinosaur website: Everything Dinosaur.