Discovery could be New Genus of Armoured Dinosaur

A dig site near to the town of Jordan (Montana, USA) could provide palaeontologists with a new genus of armoured ankylosaur to study, thanks to the excavations of two brothers from Kansas.  The ankylosaurs were a group of ornithischian dinosaurs, that evolved during the Late Cretaceous, they were descended from earlier armoured dinosaurs that are known collectively as the Thyreophora (shield bearers).  These plant-eating dinosaurs were widespread across the Northern Hemisphere by the end of the Mesozoic.  The proliferation of ankylosaurids across Asia and North America suggests that these herbivores lived in an era that was dominated by big theropod predators (the tyrannosaurs), these animals needed heavy armour and powerful tail clubs to protect themselves from these predators.

An Illustration of a Typical Late Cretaceous Ankylosaur

A replica of Pinacosaurus (PNSO dinosaur model). Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The image (above) is of an armoured dinosaur (Pinacosaurus) which can be found in the PNSO range of prehistoric animal figures: PNSO Armoured Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animal Figures.

Armoured Dinosaur

The two Kansas based brothers, both keen fossil hunters think they have found something new while digging in the fossil rich strata of Montana.  According to Jim Kirkland, a state palaeontologist at the Utah Geological Survey, who has examined photos of the fossil that Robert and Alan Detrich are uncovering it looks like a new type of ankylosaur.

Jim stated:

“This thing is worthy of note.  There is no doubt about it.  In my mind it’s clearly a new one.”

The brothers have been digging for several weeks.  So far they have uncovered the ankylosaur fossil’s skull, part of its leg, ribs, armoured plates and some vertebrae (back bones.  Based on the fossils found so far, scientists are suggesting that this specimen could represent an animal some ten metres in length, making it one of the biggest ankylosaur fossils discovered to date.

Brother Robert commented:

“It’s huge! It’s bigger than any of the specialists have seen so far.  It’s got everybody pretty excited.”

Kirkland and the Detrich brothers hope a person or institution will step forward to buy the fossil for a museum, which would allow for further study to determine if it is indeed unique.  The effort would involve cleaning the fossil and comparing it against related animals from the fossil record to make sure it is not just a variation of a previously discovered dinosaur.  If these fossils do represent a new genus of ankylosaurid, then the brothers as the finders would have the opportunity to name this dinosaur.  Robert Detrich said, if given the opportunity, he would like to call it “Enormasaurus” in memory of his late mother Norma.

Robert added:

“It’s exciting.  It really is.  When he came back and said it’s pretty clearly a new genus, and these guys write papers on ankylosaurs so they know their stuff.”

Robert Detrich, who is from Wichita, and his brother, who lives in Lawrence, plan to return to Kansas in about three weeks.  Besides the ankylosaur fossil, the brothers also have been digging up a Triceratops fossil.  Perhaps the brothers will be able to find the front limbs of their Triceratops, as the forelimbs of these horned dinosaurs are rarely found in association with other elements of the specimen.

The Confusion over Ornithocheirus

The pterosaur known as Ornithocheirus is perhaps more familiar to dinosaur fans than many other types of flying reptile.  It appeared in the ground breaking documentary television series “Walking with Dinosaurs”, in fact it was the star of one of the episodes “Beneath a Giant’s Wings”.  It is regarded my many as one of the largest pterosaurs known to science with many young dinosaur fans often quoting the text from the many BBC publications associated with the original television series that state that Ornithocheirus was “the size of a small plane”.

Ornithocheirus

As with most aspects of palaeontology the known facts are not permitted to get in the way of a good story.  It is true that some exceptionally large pterosaur fossil fragments were found in the Santana Formation of north-eastern Brazil and it was from this evidence that the BBC were able to depict Ornithocheirus as such a huge animal.  However, as far as we know those fossils have yet to be fully researched and although they are associated (for the moment), to the Ornithocheirus genus, claims for a twelve metre long wingspan for a member of this particular genus of the pterosauria are doubted by many palaeontologists.

A Drawing of Ornithocheirus

Ornithocheirus “Bird Hand”.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The trouble with pterosaurs and with Ornithocheirus in particular is the fragmentary and often highly eroded nature of their fossilised bones.  The English palaeontologist Harry Govier Seeley was given the task of trying to classify the many hundreds of pterosaur bones that had been found in the Cambridge Greensand deposits of England, a project that he started in 1869.  He was commissioned to sort out the flying reptile fossils of the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge on behalf of the museum itself and Cambridge University.  The young, enthusiastic Seeley was beset with problems from the very beginning.  These rocks (Cambridge Greensand) represent marine sediments deposited by encroaching sea water over what was to become England during the Early Cretaceous Period.

The highly fragmentary and eroded nature of the fossils has led a number of scientists to conclude that the pterosaur fossils were eroded out of older strata on the sea shore and redeposited.  From over 1,000 fossils, Seeley attempted to characterise and classify individual species of Ornithocheirus.  His original work has been re-examined by numerous other scientists over the years and something like forty separate species of Ornithocheirus are now listed but most of these are “Nomen dubia” – names given to organisms whose validity is in doubt.

From the fossils discovered to date, Ornithocheirus type pterosaurs were particularly widespread with fossils found in Europe, Australia and Africa, the largest of their kind probably has wingspans of approximately six metres, not the size of a small plane but still large for a pterosaur.

To view models of pterosaurs and other dinosaur toys take a look at “Les Dinosaures” from Papo: Papo Dinosaurs and Pterosaurs.

“Prehistoric Times” Summer Edition – A Review

The countdown to issue 100 of the quarterly magazine “Prehistoric Times” is well underway and to whet our appetites somewhat issue 98 (summer 2011) arrived yesterday.  The front cover features superb artwork from Mark Hallett, in an illustration he calls “The Inheritors” he depicts two contrasting types of mammals that roamed Wyoming 33 million years ago – a prehistoric rabbit (Paleolagus haydeni) and the huge Brontops robustus.

Brontotherium in all their bizarre shapes and forms are depicted inside the magazine with an article written by Phil Hore and illustrated by readers artwork.  The featured dinosaur is Tenontosaurus an ornithopod forever associated with the meat-eater Deinonychus, but there is much more to this dinosaur than that and an article “fleshes” out what we know about this highly successful genera.

The CollectA Age of Dinosaurs Tenontosaurus Model

The CollectA Age of Dinosaurs Tenontosaurus model.

To see the extensive CollectA Age of Dinosaurs model range available from Everything Dinosaur (whilst stocks last): CollectA Tenontosaurus and Other Dinosaur Models.

The Stance of Sauropods

Tracy Lee Ford’s contribution is a continuation into his assessment of the stance of sauropods.  Were they capable of bipedalism or indeed adopting a tripodal stance?  The evidence and arguments are thoughtfully presented along with helpful and informative anatomical drawings.  Of particular interest was the preamble on the early scientific studies regarding sauropod stance, this helps to put the current theories into their proper context and it is always a pleasure to be reminded of those theories (that persisted until the 1970s) that these long-necked herbivores were mainly aquatic.

The Front Cover Illustration of “Prehistoric Times” (Issue 98)

Picture credit: Mike Fredericks

Paul McFarland reviews Dinosaur theme parks in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and there is the usual update on model releases and new kits plus part two of the interview with palaeo-artist Ricardo Delgado.  All-in-all this issue of “Prehistoric Times” is jam-packed with information, artwork and articles – well worth the subscription.

Prehistoric Times website: Prehistoric Times.

Titanosaurid Egg Containing Cocoons of Wasps Discovered

In a scenario not out of place in a television detective series, scientists have carefully examined the fossilised remains of insects preserved inside a seventy-million-year-old dinosaur egg, to try to piece together the story of how this egg was broken and what it can tell them about the role of insects in dinosaur dominated food chains.  The fossil forensics have been conducted upon the egg of a huge, long-necked Cretaceous plant-eater known as a titanosaur.  These creatures were some of the largest land-living animals of all time, but their eggs are surprisingly small given the fact that these animals could grown to upwards of thirty metres in length and weigh perhaps as much as ten elephants.

Titanosaurid Egg

Exceptionally preserved fossils of insect cocoons have allowed researchers in Argentina to describe how wasps played an important role in food webs devoted to consuming rotting dinosaur eggs. The research is published in the scientific journal Palaeontology.

The approximately 70-million-year-old eggs, from gigantic titanosaur sauropod dinosaurs were discovered in 1989 in the Patagonia region of Argentina, well known for yielding fossils of sauropod dinosaur eggs and even embryonic dinosaurs.  Only recently it was discovered that one of the broken eggs contained tiny sausage-shaped structures, 2-3 cm long and 1 cm wide.  The structures closely resembled fossilised insect cocoons, and were most similar in size and shape to the cocoons of some species of modern wasp.

Some Titanosaurs were Huge!

Huge dinosaurs – titanosaurids.  An illustration of a giant titanosaur.  Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Pictures released show the bottom half of the broken sauropod egg, the cocoons of wasps can be made out and the coin provides scale.  Each wasp cocoon is approximately 2 cm long.

There are many records of fossilised dinosaur eggs, and even several records of fossil cocoons, but, as author Dr Jorge Genise of the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales stated:

“This is the first time that these cocoons are found closely associated with an egg.”

A Rare Insight into the Role of Insects

This fossils provides a rare insight into the role played by insects and how they interacted with the Dinosauria.

Dr Genise went onto state the results of their forensic examination indicate that:

“Wasps probably participated in the food web, mostly composed of scavenging insects, which developed on the rotten egg.”

Such creatures make-up of carrion communities – spiders, beetles and other creatures populating rotting organic matter, today modern forensic police scientists use insect and other scavenger evidence to try to date corpses, as any viewer of the CSI franchise would know.  The work done by the researchers on the dinosaur egg is more familiar to us from the screens of crime scene investigation documentaries.

The numbers and different types of creatures indicate the length of deposition and the time since death.  In this particular CSI, it appears that the dinosaur egg was broken by force, and subsequent fractures in the egg shell allowed scavenging creatures to feed upon the contents.  At egg sizes of around 20 cm, this represents a sizeable amount of yolk!  Other creatures later appeared to feed not upon the egg contents, but on the initial scavengers themselves.  The wasps represent the top of the food web, and could have been feeding on insects or spiders gorging on rotting egg contents.

These scavengers also played an important role in cleaning up nest sites.  Palaeontologists believe that some dinosaurs revisited nest sites year after year to lay new clutches of eggs.  Carrion communities were essential to removing decaying material in advance of new nesting seasons.  This new discovery gives us an insight into the murky world of insect communities that thrived at the feet of gigantic dinosaurs.

For models and replicas of titanosaurids and other dinosaurs: Titanosaurs and Dinosaurs (CollectA Prehistoric Life).