Category: Dinosaurs

Palaeos of a Feather, Communicate Together!

Posted on by Travis Park in Dinosaurs, Feathers

No feathers. #JP4. With that short sharp statement on 21st March via Twitter, Colin Trevorrow, the director of the forthcoming instalment of the Jurassic Park franchise has sent the palaeo community into a frenzy of disbelief and dismay. But after going to see Jurassic Park 3D (it’s still awesome) on Saturday night and being painfully reminded of it every time a theropod was on-screen, I believe that since there doesn’t seem to be any chance of the feathered dinosaurs being accurately portrayed in the new JP we, the palaeo community, should try to turn this disappointing situation to our advantage and communicate how dinosaurs actually were in life.

Even large theropods such as this Yutyrannus huali have been found with some sort of fuzzy covering. Artwork by Brian Choo.
Even large theropods such as this Yutyrannus huali have been found with some sort of fuzzy covering. Artwork by Brian Choo.

In the coming year there will be a wave of publicity as the release of JP4 nears. We should be riding the crest of this wave and using it as a soapbox to communicate to the public that no, dinosaurs were not just scaly monsters, but as we’re coming to realise, multiple species had feathers, feathers were a common characteristic of dinosaurs and some sort of fuzzy covering appears to have been have even more widespread across the various dinosaur lineages.

Let me be clear though, when I read the news that there would be no feathers in JP4 I was as aghast as the next evidence appreciating person. But having had time to reflect on the decision (which appears to be based on “continuity”) I am determined to not let this prevent the truth that many dinosaurs were feathered from getting communicated to as many members of the public as possible. I’m aware it’s not like scientists have hid these finds away from the public until now, but judging by the amount of people commenting on the various articles covering this announcement that actually support the decision and don’t seem aware of it, there are still people who don’t realise just how prevalent feathers were and how the behaviours and traits they associate with birds only were already there in dinosaurs (I know they are actually the same thing). Just because the dinosaurs you imagined in your childhood were scaly dragon-esque creatures doesn’t mean that they have to remain that way forever (or else they would still be swamp dwelling, tail dragging leviathans).

Citipati is shown here brooding on its nest of eggs in a pose that you can still see today in living birds. Image from Clark et al. 1999.
Citipati is shown here brooding on its nest of eggs in a pose that you can still see today in living birds. Image from Clark et al. 1999.

So consider this as a call-to-arms (of the communicational variety). I know that a lot of science writers will already be planning to do this or already have done so to a certain extent. So this may seem to some people like I’m stating the obvious here. But I’m not just talking about people like myself who are regularly communicating science via blogs, Twitter etc. If we, as a community, make as much noise as we can, via as many media as possible when the public is just about to see the new movie, then we can ensure that more people than ever before are aware not only that many dinosaurs were feathered, but also convey to the public how much our understanding is improving of these magnificent creatures. The biggest success story of vertebrate palaeontology in the past two decades is the overwhelming confirmation that birds are in fact living dinosaurs. If Colin Trevorrow isn’t going to show the world just how awesome feathered dinos were, then it’s up to us.

Field trip to the Otways

Posted on by Travis Park in Australian palaeo, Dinosaurs, Personal research

Another post, another field trip! I’ve been quite fortunate so far this year, this trip was my third already and it’s only March (I think my fiancé has forgotten who I am)! In my defence though, this trip was only a short two night stay, with a day and a half worth of field work.

But enough already, where did I go? The locality we were digging at is known as Eric the Red West and it is situated on the southern coast of Victoria’s Otways ranges, around four hours west of Melbourne. The name of the site comes from a famous ship known as Eric the Red that wrecked there in 1880, whose anchor lies just east of our dig site, hence the Eric the Red West! The rocks at this locality are similar to those found at the site of my last field trip at Flat Rocks, Inverloch, which is on the other side of Melbourne. However the rocks in the Otways, although also Early Cretaceous, are around 10 million years younger than those found at Inverloch. They would have once been part of the same single unit but geological events in the Miocene have split them into two separate groups. The fossils found from the Otways are from the Eumarella Formation, Otways Group and the Flat Rocks fossils are from the Wonthaggi Formation, Strzelecki Group (Benson et al., 2012). This temporal difference between the two areas gives us a unique opportunity to study the evolution of life here in Victoria during the early Cretaceous as we can compare the two sites and look for differences in the flora and fauna.

Map showing not only the Eric the Red West site and the Flat Rocks site at Inverloch, but other fossil localites from Victoria. Image from Benson et al., 2012.
Map showing not only the Eric the Red West site and the Flat Rocks site at Inverloch, but other fossil localities from Victoria. Image from Benson et al., 2012.

Another bonus of a field trip to the Otways is the camp we get to stay in. Called Bimbi Park, it is situated right in the middle of the Otways Ranges National Park (so no Internet, hence the lateness of this blog post) where you are surrounded by trees full of Koalas, although at night when you’re trying to sleep and the males won’t stop bellowing they can lose their appeal momentarily! It really is a beautiful picturesque spot for getting away from it all and I’d definitely recommend it should you ever find yourself in that neck of the woods.

Picture of the campsite at Bimbi park. You really do get to sleep with Koalas above your head! Image from planbooktravel.com
Picture of the campsite at Bimbi park. You really do get to sleep with Koalas above your head! Image from planbooktravel.com

Tourism plugs aside, there have been several notable finds at the Eric the Red West site since it was first prospected in 2005 (Kool, 2010). There tends to be fewer finds at the Otways site, but the material is often of better quality than Flat Rocks. One of the best came on that very first day of prospecting when an articulated tail and complete right foot of a small ornithopod dinosaur was discovered. In 2006 Inverloch and Otways dig stalwart Mary Walters found a mammal jaw (not her first one either) and more recently, dig regular Alanna Maguire has found the first upper mammal jaw from the Cretaceous of Australia (something that is still being researched at present).

The mammal jaw Mary Walters found at the Eric the Red West site in 2006, prompting an annual field season there every year since. Image from the 2007 Dinosaur Dreaming Field Report.
The mammal jaw Mary Walters found at the Eric the Red West site in 2006, prompting an annual field season there every year since onwards. Image from the 2007 Dinosaur Dreaming Field Report.

This field season is proving to be a very profitable one with the record for number of bones found in one day at the site being broken on the Monday I was there, and just prior to writing this post I read (via the Dinosaur Dreaming blog) that they had found two ornithopod jaws! There are some very exciting fossil layers being chased into the rock at present and hopefully they keep finding more cool stuff!

Now, where should I go for my next field trip…?

References

Benson, RBJ, Rich, TH, Vickers-Rich, P, Hall, M (2012) Theropod Fauna from Southern Australia Indicates High Polar Diversity and Climate-Driven Dinosaur Provinciality. PLOS One 7(5): e37122. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0037122.

Kool, L (2010) Dinosaur Dreaming. Exploring the Bass Coast of Victoria. New Artworx, Melbourne. 95pp.

Field trip to Flat Rocks, Inverloch

Posted on by Travis Park in Australian palaeo, Dinosaurs

For the past week I’ve been at a dinosaur dig I’ve been fortunate enough to attend every February since 2010. The dig, jointly organised by Monash University and Museum Victoria, is known as Dinosaur Dreaming and has been running every summer for the past 20 years, making it potentially the longest running dinosaur dig in the world!

The Dinosaur Dreaming site is approx. 113 km SE of Melbourne and has yielded numerous fossils for the past two decades. Image from Google maps.
The Dinosaur Dreaming site is approx. 113 km SE of Melbourne and has yielded numerous fossils for the past two decades. Image from Google Earth.

The locality is dated as Aptian (Early Cretaceous, ~120 Ma) and represents a a floodplain that existed in the rift valley formed by the gradual separation of Antarctica and Australia, a process that wasn’t completed until over 80 million years later. The supercontinent that these two continents formed part of (along with South America, Africa and India) was known as Gondwana. The fossils are found in layers in the light grey sandstone and conglomerate, along with abundant coal, fossilised tree stumps and other plant material. It is believed that the fossil material would have been swept in from locations upriver during episodes of flooding that caused the main rivers nearby to burst their banks. These fossil layers are what we look for when we dig at this site. It usually means having to clear off a sizeable amount of sand each morning to reaccess the fossil layer! Once we’ve cleared off the overburden a few crew members then use sledgehammers to break large chunks of rock out of the ground which is then passed to other crew members who break it down into sugar cube sized pieces searching for the fossils within.

Yours truly examining a rock to see if there any fossils inside. I almost look like I know what I'm doing! Image by Darren Hastie.
Yours truly examining a rock to see if there any fossils inside. I almost look like I know what I’m doing! Image by Darren Hastie.

And what type of fossils are we looking for exactly? Well, so far finds have included: dinosaurs (ornithopod and theropod), mammals, turtles, freshwater plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and fish, giving us a reasonably good idea of what made up this Early Cretaceous ecosystem. The downside is however that, as the material has been swept in by flooding, it is very rarely that complete elements are found (although keep your eyes peeled at the end of 2013/start of 2014 for something truly amazing coming from the site…). It is much more common to find small fragments of fossils that researchers then have to use all of their experience to piece the animal back together again, both literally and figuratively!

Another plus about the dig is that it provides school children from right across the state the chance to come and see what a real life dinosaur dig looks like (I wish I had that when I was a kid), they even get the chance to have a look for some fossils themselves!

The dig has its very own blog too, which keeps the public up to date with the goings on of the dig and what the diggers get up to during the rest of the year. Check out this video on the dinosaur dreaming blog, which shows the dig site and what we do, it even includes a short appearance by yours truly right at the end!

A massive thank you must go to Lesley, Gerry, Dave, Wendy, John and Lisa for all their hard work in keeping the dig going for as long as they have, hopefully it can last another 20 years!

 

Baby fossils shed new light on Oviraptorid feeding habits

Posted on by Travis Park in China palaeo, Dinosaurs, Oviraptorids

Oviraptorids are not your usual type of theropod dinosaur. Most people assume that all theropods had jaws bristling with teeth like steak knives ready to eviscerate the next hapless victim they came across, but Oviraptorids actually possessed short deep skulls and toothless jaws. These beaks were initially thought to have been used to crush eggs (the name Oviraptor literally means ‘egg-thief’). When the first Oviraptorid fossil was found in 1924 (Oviraptor philoceratops, Osborn, 1924) it was alongside a nest of what were thought to be Protoceratops eggs, with the Oviraptorid being assumed to be trying to grab a meal. It wasn’t until 1999 (Clarke et al. 1999) and the discovery of a closely related species (Citipati osmolskae) brooding its eggs that it was realised that Oviraptor was more likely caring for its unborn offspring rather than securing its dinner.

This is the manner in which Oviraptorids used to be portayed, as egg thiefs rather than caring parents. Notice the very out of date posture, lack of feathers and horn instead of a crest. Image from midgetonfire.blogspot.com.
This is the manner in which Oviraptorids used to be portayed, i.e. as egg thieves rather than caring parents. Notice the very out of date posture, lack of feathers and horn instead of a crest. Image from midgetonfire.blogspot.com.
The more contemporary view of Oviraptorids. Citipati is shown here brooding on its nest of eggs in a pose that you can still see today in living birds. Image from Clark et al. 1999.
The more contemporary view of Oviraptorids. Citipati is shown here brooding on its nest of eggs, a pose that you can still see today in living birds. Image from Clark et al. 1999.

So what exactly did Oviraptorids eat? Were they herbivores, carnivores or omnivores? These questions are still the subject of some debate by palaeontologists. A new paper, published in the German journal Naturwissenschaften may have discovered new evidence to help sway the argument one way or another.  The paper, by Lu et al., describes a new species of Oviraptorid, Yulong mini and compares it to all known Oviraptorids and other theropods.

Baby dinosaur! This is the juvenile skeleton of Yunlong mini, as well as a line drawing to help you decipher which bones are which. Image from Lu et al., 2013.
Baby dinosaur! This is the juvenile skeleton of Yunlong mini, as well as a line drawing to help you decipher which bones are which. Image from Lu et al., 2013.

When the authors analysed the results of their comparisons, they noticed that the hind limb proportions of Oviraptorids remain constant throughout their whole lives. This is different to most theropods, whose hind limb proportions tend to change as they mature (allometric growth). The interesting thing is that this type of growth (known as isometric) tends to be found in is herbivores. Furthermore, although the individuals found were less than a year old, their limb bones were quite well developed, suggesting they were already able to move around easily. If you couple this with the lack of adult skeletons found at the localites Yulong was discovered, there may be a case for Yunlong possessing precocial development (i.e little/no parental care, effectively born like a mini adult), something again associated with herbivores. Carnivores tend to be altricial, where they are born relatively helpless and require more care take longer to develop.

So was Yunlong and other Oviraptorids herbivorous? We still don’t know for sure. But this new evidence suggests it remains a distinct possibility.

References

Clark, J.M., Norell, M.A., & Chiappe, L.M. (1999). “An oviraptorid skeleton from the Late Cretaceous of Ukhaa Tolgod, Mongolia, preserved in an avianlike brooding position over an oviraptorid nest.” American Museum Novitates, 3265: 36 pp., 15 figs.; (American Museum of Natural History) New York.

Lu, J, Currie, PJ, Xu, L, Zhang, X, Pu, H & Jia, S  (2013) Chicken-sized oviraptorid dinosaurs from central China and their ontogentic implications. Naturwissenschaften 100: 165-175.

Osborn, H.F. (1924). “Three new Theropoda, Protoceratops zone, central Mongolia.” American Museum Novitates, 144: 12 pp., 8 figs.; (American Museum of Natural History) New York.

 

Why did the dinosaur cross the river? Because it wasn’t a stampede.

Posted on by Travis Park in Australian palaeo, Dinosaurs, Ichnology

One of Australia’s best known dinosaur sites, the Dinosaur Stampede National Monument at Lark Quarry, near Winton, Queensland has just been dramatically reinterpreted in a new paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.  The site, which was covered by a purpose built building in 2002 and placed on the Australian National Heritage List in 2004 preserves over 3000 individual tracks that, until recently, were believed to demonstrate evidence of a ‘jumanji-esque’ dinosaur stampede.

Where these tracks made by fleeing dinosaurs of were they trying to cross a river? Image from environment.gov.au
Were these tracks made by fleeing dinosaurs or were they trying to cross a river? Image from environment.gov.au

The new paper, by Anthony Romilio (University of Queensland), Ryan Tucker (James Cook University) and Steven Salisbury (University of Queensland) puts forward a rather different hypothesis: the tracks represent a river of varying depth that dinosaurs often had to cross.

The orthodox spin on the story identifies two ichnotaxa (taxa known only from their tracks) as the track makers. Wintonopus, a small ornithopod and Skartopus, a small theropod. This was actually used as evidence of ‘mixed herding’ where small herbivores and carnivores hung around together as protection against larger predators Thulborn and Wade (1979, 1984, 1989).

Romilio et al. disagree with this interpretation. they claim that there is in fact only a single track maker present, which would be named as Wintonopus as it was named first, with Skartopus becoming a junior synonym. They also failed to find any evidence of a single mass of running individuals leaving them with their own opinion on what was going on here. “The presence of swim traces, long stride lengths, and preferred trackway orientation indicates that the majority of Lark Quarry trackmakers moved downstream and were current assisted. The paleo-water depth would have had to vary in order to allow different-sized buoyed trackmakers to contact the substrate, indicating that animals passed through the area at different time intervals. In the absence of evidence for the single mass of running terrestrial trackmakers, we consider that Lark Quarry is not representative of a ‘dinosaurian stampede.'”

A more accurate picture? Image by Anthony Romilio.
A more accurate picture? Image by Anthony Romilio.

So, which view is more accurate? Only time, and further research will tell. But as there appears to be some friction between the authors of the new paper and Richard Thulborn (one of the authors of most of the earlier work on the trackways), one thing is for sure; this isn’t the last we’ve heard about the Lark Quarry trackway.

The paper is discussed in a little more detail by Brian Switek (@Laelaps) on his excellent blog Laelaps (one of the best palaeo blogs going).

References

Romilio A, Tucker, R. T. and S. W. Salisbury (2013): Reevaluation of the Lark Quarry dinosaur Tracksite (late Albian–Cenomanian Winton Formation, central-western Queensland, Australia): no longer a stampede?, Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 33:1, 102-120

Thulborn, R. A., and M. Wade. 1979. Dinosaur stampede in the Cretaceous of Queensland. Lethaia 12:275–279.

Thulborn, R. A., and M. Wade. 1984. Dinosaur trackways in the Winton
Formation (mid-Cretaceous) of Queensland. Memoirs Queensland
Museum 21:413–517.

Thulborn, R. A., and M. Wade. 1989. A footprint as a history of movement; pp. 51–56 in D. D. Gillette andM.G. Lockley (eds.),Dinosaur Tracks and Traces. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.