Episode 567: A new species of Spinosaurus and Ogden’s Dinosaur Park. Spinosaurus mirabilis has a head unlike any other spinosaur with possibly the tallest head crest of any non-avian dinosaur. Plus, Jeff Bond joins from Ogden’s George S. Eccles Dinosaur Park to discuss what it’s like running a museum with animatronics, fossils, a prep lab, sculptures, and (in the near future) puppets!

News:

• There’s a new species of Spinosaurus, Spinosaurus mirabilis, with a very impressive crest on its head source

Interview:

Jeff Bond, curator and head paleontologist at Ogden’s George S. Eccles Dinosaur Park in Utah

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The dinosaur of the day: Bonatitan

• Titanosaur sauropod that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Rio Negro Province, Argentina (Allen Formation)
• Saltasaur titanosaur: relatively small sauropods, and only known group of sauropods found with armor (not all of them found with armor, including this one)
• Closely related to Saltasaurus, titanosaur from northern Argentina
• Walked on all fours, had a long neck, long tail, small head
• Small titanosaur, but uncertain of its size, because of lack of fossils
• Largest femur, or thigh bone, is 23 in (58.5 cm) long
• Type species is Bonatitan reigi
• Named in 2004 by Agustín Martinelli and Analía Forasiepi
• Genus name in honor of “Dr. Jose F. Bonaparte, due to his immense contribution to the knowledge of Mesozoic vertebrates of South America”
• Species name in honor of Dr. Osvaldo Reig for his contribution to South American paleontology
• When it first named, fossils found considered to come from two individuals
• Holotype included a complete braincase, a back bone, a tail bone, left humerus (arm bone) part of a hand, both femora and tibiae (lower leg bones), part of the left foot, and some fragments
• Second specimen included another complete braincase, a neck bone, part of a left arm, part of a left leg, part of a foot, and fragments
• Bones were disarticulated and bones of each individual were mixed
• They separated them based on their relative sizes
• Said that the holotype is the more complete one, and about 20% larger than the second individual
• Redescribed in 2014, and found instead of two individuals, the bones belonged to at least five individuals and the holotype bones belonged to three individuals
• New type specimen is the bigger braincase
• Some of the original bones described were reinterpreted as different bone
• Some bones identified as an arm bone instead of a foot bone, for example
• Had slender bones
• A 2012 study CT scanned the braincases and compared them to previously described sauropod braincases
• Braincases belong to subadults, based on unfused bones
• Reconstructed the inner ear
• Did not have a good sense of smell
• Found it had narrower range of movements of the head
• Lived in a place with lots of water
• Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place include ankylosaurs like Patagopelta, hadrosaurs like Bonapartesaurus and Lapampasaurus, sauropods like Aeolosaurus and Menucocelsior, theropods like Austroraptor and Limenavis
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place include pterosaurs, fish, squamates, turtles, plesiosaurs, frogs, and mammals

Fun Fact:

There were (probably) giant octopuses much bigger than today’s giant squid in the seas during the Cretaceous source

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