Hairy Museum of Natural History

The Beyond Bones blog at the Houston Museum of Natural Science is full of paleo-stories these days:

• Several prime pelycosaur posts from recent field work in the Permian beds of Seymour, including Dimetrodon-as-chondrichthivore and new material that may be from the narrow-snouted finback Secodontosaurus .
• And a step-by-step look at how Julius T. Csotonyi recreated the world of Leonardo, the fantastically well-preserved Brachylophosaurus, for the museum’s Dinosaur Mummy CSI: Cretaceous Science Investigation exhibit. Csotonyi’s digital paintings are about the best I’ve seen, and this post gives valuable insight into his process.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Cretaceous, Dinosaurs, Museumabilia, Permian, Synapsids.

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• 
• Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai
  3-D computer rendering of the skeleton
• Credit: Pipestone Creek Bonebed Project
  

• New Dinosaur: Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai
• Name Means: Lakusta’s Thick-nosed reptile.
  (Al Lakusta discovered the Pipestone Creek Bonebed where the fossils of this dinosaur were found.)
• Relations: Ceratopsian
• Location: Alberta, Canada
• Age: Late Cretaceous, ~73,000,000 years ago
• Length: 6 meters, ~20 feet
• Weight: 1800 kilograms, ~2 tons
• Info: Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai is known from fossils first discovered more than 30 years ago in a densely packed bonebed in Alberta, Canada. Like the previously known species of Pachyrhinosaurus, P. canadensis, this new species had a thickened mass of bone (or boss) atop its nose as an adult. Unlike P. canadensis, the bosses of P. lakustai are present only in adults—juveniles of the new species were found to have horns like those of other ceratopsians. P. lakustai also differs from P. canadensis in smaller overall size and details of the ornamental spikes and bumps on its frill, according to the summary page of the newly released monograph describing this species.
• Reference: Currie, P. J., Langston, Jr., W., Tanke, D. H., 2008. A New Horned Dinosaur from an Upper Cretaceous Bone Bed in Alberta. NRC Press. 152pp. ISBN-13 9780660198194.
• Web coverage:
  • EurekAlert Press Release
  • Dinochick Blogs: Welcome Pachyrhinosaur lakustai!
  • Globe and Mail: Modest Alberta Teacher Finally Gets His Dinosaur
  • Pipestone Creek Bonebed Project
  • River of Death and Discovery Dinosaur Centre
• Update (10/3/08): Lawrence Witmer and Ryan Ridgely have made their work on the brain cavity and inner ear of Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai available online. From their “common language summary”:
  

  Indeed, the most remarkable aspect of the brain structure of Pachyrhinosaurus is how small and primitive it must have been…Despite the cranial ornaments suggestive of perhaps elaborate behavioral displays and other evidence suggesting herding behavior or even migration, the behaviors of Pachyrhinosaurus were probably relatively simple, stereotyped, and instinctual.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Cretaceous, Dinosaurs.

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• New Dinosaur: Aerosteon riocoloradensis
• Name Means: Air bones from the Rio Colorado
• Relations: Basal (allosauroid?) tetanuran theropod
• Size: 9 meters/30 feet long
• Location: Cañadon Amarillo, Argentina
• Age: Late Cretaceous, ~84,000,000 years ago
• Info:

  Key to the pneumatic features reported in Aerosteon riocoloradensis
  from Sereno et al. 2008. See here for detailed caption.

  The fossilized bones of Aerosteon are extensively pneumatized— that is, riddled with hollow spaces. In life, some of these spaces would have housed air sacs that helped maintain a steady flow of air through the dinosaur’s rigid lungs. Modern birds have inherited this type of respiratory system from their dinosaurian ancestors, who may have developed this distinctive aerated anatomy in order to breathe more efficiently, or lighten their load and keep balance while running on two legs, or as a built-in air-cooling system to keep from overheating. The extreme degree of pneumatization preserved in a relatively primitive theropod like Aerosteon helps researchers pinpoint when specific features of the avian respiratory system first evolved.

• Reference: Sereno, P. C., Martinez, R. N., Wilson, J. A., Varricchio, D. J., Alcober, O. A., Larsson, H. C. E., 2008. Evidence for Avian Intrathoracic Air Sacs in a New Predatory Dinosaur from Argentina PLoS ONE 3(9): e3303. doi10.1371/journal.pone.0003303.
• Web coverage:
  • Press Release
  • Blog Around the Clock: Aerosteon riocoloradensis- the new dinosaur with hollow bones.
  • Greg Laden’s Blog: Aerosteon riocoloradensis: A Very Cool Dinosaur from Argentina
• Update 10/6: Matt Wedel reviews the current state of research on dinosaur pneumaticity and raises some criticisms of Sereno et al.’s paper describing Aerosteon in two posts over on SV-POW.
• Update 10/31: In the comments to the PLOS One paper, Paul Sereno has labeled Wedel’s above-mentioned criticisms as “a misleading, ad-hominem critique”, and Matt Wedel has responded to the comment at SV-POW.
• Update 11/7: Commentary continues:
  • Brian Switek weighs in on the back-and-forth in a post on Smithsonian.com’s Dinosaur Tracking blog
  • In a comment to Switek’s post, Paul Sereno notes that a more detailed response to Wedel’s critiques is available at his website.

  I was alerted to the latest updates from the Dinosaur Mailing List.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Cretaceous, Dinosaurs.

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You could almost say, “Critters whose great big claws are their fingers”:

• Albertonykus and the Myrmecophagous Alvarezsaurs at When Pigs Fly Returns
• I, Priodontes, the tatuasu at Tetrapod Zoology

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Cretaceous, Dinosaurs, Mammals, Neogene.

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A few paleontology posts of note have sprung up within the past 24 hours or so…

Laelaps takes a look at pachycephalosaurs, and the possibility that three named genera of these thick-headed dinosaurs might actually represent three growth stages of a single species.

Zach reviews the Troödontidae, which paleontologists suspect filled the niche of the skinny, brainy outcasts compared to their more popular dromaeosaur cousins.

And Amanda shows off a few stunning works-in-progress at the Self-Designed Student household: a lovely Triceratops skeleton, and the “Pteranodon jeebus,” a fantastic paleo-icon sure to inspire praise among the fossiliferous faithful.

—Matt Celeskey.

File under: Cretaceous, Dinosaurs, Paleo-Pop, Webbery.

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