Creature Feature: Lambeosaurus.

It seems that filmmakers have decided on a "set" of dinosaurs that must always make it into every dinosaur movie ever. T-Rex is pretty much a given. Triceratops is also popular. If there is a pterosaur, and there usually is, it's either a Pteranodon or some bastardization thereof. Miscellaneous herbivores include Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus, with Brachiosaurus being almost too distinct to be generic. They also usually include this one:

For those of you wondering what this bizarre-looking creature is, it's called a Parasaurolophus and is one of the many duck-billed dinosaurs (hadrosaurs) out there. It seems to have become the "default" duckbill. I'm not quite sure what "modern parallel" people see in Parasaurolophus and other hadrosaurs (ancient water buffalo?), but I digress. Point is, as with pterosaurs, there's always that one hadrosaur that popular culture falls back on.

Maybe it's about time we looked at some of the other hadrosaurs on this blog, yes?

Lambeosaurus probably should be the strange duckbill everybody knows. It has a very good fossil record from Canada, Montana, and Baja California. There is some debate over exactly how many species there are in the genus, but specimens are nonetheless plentiful. It is named for the guy who discovered the first few fossils, Lawrence Lambe. Like most of the cool dinosaurs, it is from the Late Cretaceous. It is also the largest hadrosaur, getting up to 50 feet long from head to tail.

As with many hadrosaurs, the most distinguishing feature about Lambeosaurus was its crest. This crest was hatchet-shaped, making the dinosaur look like a cassowary and a unicorn at the same time.  It's hard to get more awesome than that, yet here hadrosaurs are stuck with the goofy Parasaurolophus as their representative. Kinda sad, really.

Nobody is 100% sure what these crests were for. Snorkels and salt glands are also on the table. Maybe they could even make noise; again, people love shilling Parasaurolophus for this ("it's a dinosaur with a built-in trumpet!"). There is adequate evidence that hearing and sight were a Lambeosaurus's strongest senses, so all of the above are possible. We've never seen hadrosaurs in action, or in color, for that matter, so the purpose(s) of these crests will remain a mystery until we invent time machines.

I cold get into more about what makes a hadrosaur a hadrosaur, but that is best saved for another time. Hell, I should just make a "Hadrosaur Week." They're really rather interesting, albeit not my favorite dinosaurs.

Pterosaur Week: Why Pteranodon?

So, at the start of this theme week, we covered the rather casually tossed-around term, "pterodactyl." While it is technically a correct term for all pterosaurs, what bugs me about it is that the image that comes with the word "pterodactyl" is usually not a Pterodactylus. It is usually either some messy chimera of a pterosaur or, umm, this:

From this wonderful site here.

There is a 90% chance that this is exactly what came to mind after hearing the word "pterodactyl." While all pterosaurs are by definition pterodactylids, the pterosaur that comes to mind nine times out of ten is Pteranodon. That's the beaky, crested fellow. It was around during the Late Cretaceous (when all the cool dinosaurs except Stegosaurus lived) and has been found in much of North America. They were piscivores, likely behaving much like albatrosses. They were a lot bigger than albatrosses, but still not as big as Quetzalcoatlus.

There are two things that are really distinct about Pteranodon: the beak and the crest. Pteranodon's name means "toothless wing;"indeed, just like in a modern bird, there weren't any teeth in that beak. This does not stop artists from adding them in because rawr, dinosaur. That has to be their logic.

The crest is the most varied aspect in Pteranodon as a genus. Although other pterosaurs had crests, Pteranodon had amazingly prominent ones that curved back like the crest of a cockatoo- only immobile. Along with varying in size, the crests also varied with sex. Males had more prominent crests than females. That said, this pretty much cements Pteranodon's role as a visual creature - again, just like a modern bird.

But that's just the basic info. This entry will go one step further from the norm and try to answer the hidden question posed at the start of this week: why are all pterosaurs mentally lumped into the term "pterodactyl," anyways? Isn't that a lot like calling T-rex "tyrannosaurid" or Triceratops a "ceratopsid?" It's a weird, generic term (actually going back farther than the genus, but I digress) that applies uniquely to pterosaurs.

For starters, Pteranodon was a Pterodactylus before it was its own genus. There are a ton of complicated things involving naming dinosaurs. We could just say "the name stuck," but that still doesn't quite explain the popularity of Pteranodon versus, well...other pterodactyls. It may have been the biggest of its time, but if we Chicagoans can get used to calling the Sears Tower the Willis Tower, surely biology classes can update themselves accordingly.

Along with the name "pterodactyl" sticking, Pteranodon's popularity may well lie in how relateable it is. When marketing dinosaurs, one usually won't go for "OMG this thing is weird!" They want "just weird enough." It is easy for our minds to think things like lion = big carnivore, T-rex = bigger, meanier, scalier carnivore, rhino = big herbivore with horns, Triceratops = big herbivore with horns, and so on. Pteranodon is like a big, weird seabird of some sort - see how easy it is to make that parallel?   Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops are "just weird enough." So is Pteranodon; it's pretty tame as far as pterosaurs are concerned. (And yet, "Pteranodon" is a lot easier to say than "pterodactyl." Go figure.)

It also helps that there are many complete, in-tact specimens of Pteranodon. We more or less know what a Pteranodon looked like. T-Rex's image has undergone more revisions through the ages than Pteranodon has or will. Until Jurassic Park becomes real, we probably know all that we're going to know about Pteranodon aside from the odd new species to the genus. We know that they had sexual dimorphism, with males being larger than females and sporting larger crests. Yes, we literally know Pteranodon intimately.

I'm not even going to try to list every single pop culture reference Pteranodon has had. If a dinosaur thing has a pterosaur in it, there's a good chance it's Pteranodon or some creature modeled after it.  Instead, have a picture of Rodan, one of the most famous Pteranodon cosplayers ever:

As for the chimeric "pterodactyl" still running rampant? Just treat it as a dragon/wyvern. That's what it looks like, after all.

Creature Feature: Baryonyx.

For those of you following my Twitter...yes, I got into Fossil Fighters (Champions) again. No, I do not intend to get as competitive with FFC as I am with Pokemon. Apparently the hardcore fanbase demands that you not only excavate a gold fossil perfectly for your team, but also demands that it be attached to a Tyranno to make a T-Rex Lord.

Everybody wants the T. rex. Rex this, rex that, rexrexrexrexrex seems to be what draws people, whether they're deep into dinosaurs or not. I know that comparing a long-extinct predator to Charizard (i.e. cool, powerful, but overrated) is poor showmanship, but if the glove fits, well...OK, T. rex is one finger short of wearing Charizard's glove perfectly. Thing is, as much as I respect T. rex (I come from the city with SUE, for crying out loud) dinosaurs are still dinosaurs. Seeing any thunderlizard in the modern day would be quite terrifying. No need to focus on the 'rex so much.

I wish I knew who did this.

Most carnivorous dinos would be just as terrifying as a 'rex, especially this thing. Seriously, this dino looks freaky. Hell, it isn't even going to eat us (we hope), but who wouldn't run screaming after seeing those claws, that mouthful of hooklike teeth, and a build that looks a lot more streamlined than good ol' T.rex?

The monster has a name: Baryonyx, literally "heavy claw." There has only been one species discovered, so it's safe to just call it by the generic name. It was discovered near Dorking, England. The specimen there was 28 feet from head to tail and probably weighed around 3,700 pounds, but it might not even have been fully grown. However big it was, it lived in the Early Cretaceous (130-125 m.y.a.), a smidge earlier than T.rex. It was most closely related to Spinosaurus, another large, carnivorous dinosaur that tends to be overshadowed by the 'rex, and Suchomimus, the only other piscivorous dino on record. 

Right off the bat, Baryonyx has mean-looking claws. We think it used these digits to hunt much like a modern grizzly bear - wait for fish, then strike. Worse still, Baryonyx had thumbs. Claws and thumbs? If the scientists who made Jurassic Park ever become real, we should tell them not to resurrect Baryonyx. These fishers were supposedly pretty intelligent, too, adding yet another fear factor.

Aside from its claws, Baryonyx also had teeth that makes anyone looking at them either freeze or run. It's almost as if a crocodile's mouth got slapped onto the body of a land-walking dinosaur, then made plausible by the creature's long, straight neck and fishhook claws. Baryonyx had 96 teeth in total- almost twice as many as Tyrannosaurus - and each and every one of them was serrated like a finely-edged saw. .Like its menacing claws, these teeth were used solely to catch fish. We're actually pretty sure about that...although Baryonyx have been found near Iguanadon skeletons as well. We might be more screwed than we thought.

Again, who did this?

Just to reiterate: T.rex is still awesome, but there are plenty of other things that could easily be just as terrifying. We cool, Sue? I'm going to get out of here before limbs get lost.

Creature Feature: Pterodaustro.

Looking at the pterosaur poster in my room, I say to myself "man, there need to be more monsters made out of these." Seriously, with the skulls pterosaurs have, one could make a whole new legion of Hell. We've already covered a few with interesting crests like Nyctosaurus and Tapejara, but the bills of some pterosaurs are worth a look, too.

Along with weird crests, a lot of pterosaurs had weird teeth. Several species had teeth at the end of their long bills. One had teeth that seriously looked like long combs. Basically, they made mergansers, the 'toothy' gangsta punks of the duck world, drop their spray cans and hide.

Which brings us to this:

From www.baystatereplicas.com

 

That skull belongs to Pterodaustro ("southern wing"). Pterodaustro was a pterosaur discovered in 1969 in Argentina. It lived in the Cretaceous a little bit earlier than less-freakish pterosaurs like Pterandon and cool dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. It survives today only as an example of one of the freakiest pterosaurs ever.

Let's start with the obvious: The bill of Pterodaustro was lined with thousands of slender, long teeth. It is hypothesized that these were used for filter feeding, much like modern day flamingos. A single Pterodaustro would have consumed thousands of these tiny organisms in a single scoop. Fossils of such tiny creatures have been observed around Pterodaustro, so this flamingo parallel is not from the beak alone. The resemblance is uncanny; remember that birds and pterosaurs aren't even closely related.



Speaking of flamingos, by the way, Pterodaustro may well have been pink. It's unknown how pterosaur pigments worked, but this one shared a diet with flamingos. Flamingos get their bright colors from eating a lot of crustaceans. In the worst-case scenario, its fur may have been black on bright pink skin. Yes, your worst nightmares now come in pink. 

Creature Feature: Protoceratops.

(Apologies for the delay on this one, too. No excuses except "Kuro needed sleep." Hope to get on a better schedule during Spring Break.)  


There is nothing that captures the imagination quite like a dinosaur. It blows our minds to think of a world dominated by creatures not even remotely like us. In this fantasy, however, we frequently overlook that not all dinosaurs were huge, and there were plenty of mammals, too. 




Protoceratops was one of the smaller ceratopsid dinosaurs out there. It had been found mostly in Mongolia and, like most things with parrot beaks, ate plants. It was roughly 2 meters long at most and would barely stand up to the waist of an adult human. Forget that motorized Triceratops; let your kids ride on the back of a real mini-dino sometime.

As the name might imply, Protoceratops was one of the first real ceratopsids to hit the scene in the Early Cretaceous. It has the characteristic frill (whose purpose is still unknown), but also shares some primitive features with not-so-famous dinosaurs like Psittacosaurus - an even smaller dinosaur named after its parrot-like beak. Those are pretty neat, but do not have as many clearly ceratopsian features as Protoceratops. Proto's a transition form, if you will.



The first fossilized dinosaur eggs ever came from a Protoceratops. These are largely assumed to be from Protoceratops simply because of the area they were found in; nobody knows for sure whether baby protos hatched from them or not. Baby Protoceratops were found in 2011. It has been suggested that Protoceratops, as well as other ceratopsians, took care of their young.



Protoceratops may well have been the origin of the gryphon. Take a look at the beak on a Protoceratops and one can easily see where the idea of a four-legged eagle beast came from. Furthermore, the particular area in which the Protoceratops was found has been known for gold deposits, explaining the gryphon's reputation as a keeper of treasure. The invention of the modern gryphon coincides with the introduction of Scythian traders to Greece. Dragons weren't the only mythological creatures with a link to dinosaurs.

Protoceratops is also a Vivosaur in Fossil Fighters, for those of you interested. In the first game, it was able to become a Tricera - fitting, no? Just sayin'. 

Creature Feature: Nyctosaurids.

Pterosaurs are my favorite prehistoric creatures ever, in part because they are so goshdarn strange. They could fly, a feature that has only evolved in vertebrates three separate times. They had fur. Many of them had crazy head. (The generic pterosaur with a crest, a long neck, and a long tail did not exist, by the way.) Pterosaurs were also the origin of wyverns, the basis for the ever-so-popular British dragon.



The pterosaur genus Nyctosaurus probably takes the cake for weirdness, even for pterosaurs.  They were relatively large pterosaurs with two-meter wingspans. All Nyctosaur specimens come from exactly one deposit (the Niobrara Formation) in Kansas, U.S.A. It lived in the Cretaceous like its relative Pteranodon, but it did not live nearly as long.

First off, what's in a name? "Nyctosaur" means "night lizard" or "bat lizard." By default, it and Stygimoloch should be mascots for a death metal band, or at least a brand of alcohol. Why Fossil Fighters made this particular pterosaur bright green instead of giving it a darker palette and a black wyvern super form is beyond me. That's right, I know you know Greek. Don't be scared to flaunt it!

 Part of the reason they got their goth-friendly name was because, unlike all other pterosaurs, Nyctosaurus had only one digit on each wing. This made its wing structure more like a bat's than like the wings of other pterosaurs. Most pterosaurs had four digits total on each wing: three claws and a long, thick wing digit. Nyctosaurus was all wing and no hand. We are not even sure how it landed.

Pterosaurs in general have some pretty weird headgear, but Nyctosaurus puts them all to shame with its antler. Although not present in all nyctosaurid specimens, many skulls sport a crest about a foot high with a horizontal prong that's almost as long. The crest is roughly three times as big as the pterosaur's actual head. If this projection had a flap of skin between the two, it may have been used like a sail to steer the creature. There is also the possibility that, sail or no, it was used in courtship...which may explain why the nyctosaurids did not live very long.

This just LOOKS awkward.

Alas, Nyctosaurus lived for maybe a million years, and only in one location. Compared to other paleo-beasts, its life was short and sweet. Is anybody reading this really surprised? It's trippy to know that something like this existed, but there are a few aspects of Nyctosaurus that are impractical, to say the least. Darwinism: It works.

Creature Feature: Microraptor.

I once overheard a conversation stating that, if one adds an extra pair of wings onto anything, it instantly becomes a mythical creature. Put wings on a horse and you get a pegasus; wings on a unicorn implies an alicorn; wings on a lion is usually some sort of sphinx, or, if you prefer, the sacred beast of Mark. This logic falls flat on its face when it comes to dinosaurs.

Yes, four-winged dinosaurs were a thing.



Meet the bird-dinosaurs in the genus Microraptor. They are among the smallest dinosaurs ever found, being about the size and weight of crows. The fossils for Microraptor were found in China, making the scientific names even harder to pronounce than the typical Greco-Roman used in naming dinosaurs.  They ate small mammals and very little else - just like modern raptors! They lived during the early Cretaceous, AKA the period we all REALLY know about despite "Jurassic" being stamped on everything dinosaur-related.

Microraptor did indeed have all of its limbs converted into fully-feathered wings.  However, it was probably more of a glider than a flyer. Scientists think that it flew in graceful, U-shaped arcs from one tree to another. The hands on both wings probably had little use beyond grabbing tree bark.



 Even with some very well-preserved fossils, we cannot tell the proper limb arrangement of this dinosaur. Earlier proposals showed it flying with one wing more or less behind the other, sort of like a dragonfly. The more likely arrangement positions the wings in an X-shape like a biplane, giving the evolution of flight an uncanny parallel to the history of human aviation. We think Microraptor could fly normally as well, but was primarily a glider.

There are debates over whether this four-winged raptor left any evolutionary descendants or not. It is perfectly possible - people had been suggesting a four-winged dinosaur as an avian relative since the 1900's - but there's no conclusive evidence to say one way or the other. The biplane-raptor likely died off, leaving other raptors and feathered dinosaurs to become the birds we know today. Just because it's cool doesn't mean it works.

P.S. Darn Fossil Fighters Champions, eating me alive...

Creature Feature: Therizinosaurus.

It is now widely known that dinosaurs had feathers. As such, many of our perceptions of nasty carnivores like Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor have been considered outdated and forever tarnished. It's hard to take Velociraptor seriously when it looks like a chicken.

It would, however, make a very good backup dancer in "Thriller." Or whatever Gaga comes out with next.

The weirdness of feathered dinosaurs does not stop there. Picture that raptor with a long neck like a sauropod. Add a dragging tail. Turn those killer claws on the raptor's feet into Freddy-esque talons on its forelimbs. Finally, make it huge, just to scare the sh*t out of the puny humans who would discover it eons later. If we have described it well enough, it should look something like this:

 

That is a real dinosaur. Or, well, it's a restoration of what was a real dinosaur. Its name was Therizinosaurus. Although there were many therizinosaurs, the one that gave its name to the genus, Therizinosaurus cheloniformis, was the biggest at 30-40 feet (making it one of the largest theropods - just sayin').  It was found, much like many feathered dinosaurs, in the Cretaceous Period of China. Small wonder that dragons receive such praise in that area.

 

Therizinosaurus literally means "scythe lizard." When this creature was first found, the only part paleontologists had were the massive claws later identified as this dinosaur's fingers. A single claw on this beast was around 3 feet long. If Jurassic Park revived one of these, it would probably skewer a few innocent spectators quite without meaning to.



Although those giant claws looked intimidating, if the skulls of other Therizinosaurs are any indication, T. cheloniformis was an herbivore. A massive, clawed herbivore. Those claws may have been used to slash predators, as a form of showing how well-endowed a male was, or for holding down foliage. Even feathers and being an herbivore cannot tone down the awesomeness of those claws. Remember what we've said about herbivores needing to be badass? Yes? All right then.

Creature Feature: Torosaurus

Herbivorous dinosaurs are underrated. Much like animals in Africa, nearly everybody wants to see the giant carnivores - Tyrannosaurus rex, Allosaurus, Velociraptor, etc. - instead of the big plant eaters that can be just as spectacular. A few, however, break the mold; this is one of them.

"Hey, that's Triceratops, right?"

Not quite. Although Torosaurus ("wide-perforated lizard" or, mistranslated, "bull lizard") looks quite a lot like one of the most iconic herbivorous dinosaurs, the story is twisting the other direction. Triceratops and Torosaurus looked so similar that paleontologists were starting to suspect something.

All those Triceratops specimens you saw growing up were immature Torosaurus specimens. Yes, really. 



An adult Torosaurus was one massive beast. It reached 25 feet (7.6 meters) from head to tail. The skull alone was the size of a compact car (8.5 feet/2.6 meters). The name Torosaurus probably came from the holes in its massive frill, but the common mistranslation of "bull dinosaur" is a bit more fun. Not all dinosaur names come from Latin; let us call the giant herbivore with pointy horns a bull.


Toro, toro!

Torosaurus was distinguished from Triceratops primarily by its size. Otherwise, that three-horned face looks almost exactly like good ol' Triceratops. After cross-examining lots of specimens, specifically a bunch found at Hell Creek, Montana, paleontologists finally came to the conclusion that Triceratops and Torosaurus were just different growth stages of the same dinosaur.

What does this mean? For one thing, either Triceratops or Torosaurus is going to go extinct. The Cretaceous was not big enough for the both of them; this discovery proves that dinosaur diversity was down during the time of T.rex and Triceratops. (Sorry, Stegosaurus fans, but they were from the Jurassic.) Low species diversity is never a good thing; don't let it happen to us.