At one point in the new Jurassic World movie, the main character Owen Grady (played by popular actor Andy Dwyer) pulls a broken tooth from the main monster Indominus rex from the shell of one of the Gyrospheres. Believe it or not, broken teeth just like this are incredibly important for paleontologists when it comes to studying many different aspects of dinosaur habits and behavior! First, let's take a quick look at the anatomy of a dinosaur tooth.
A pair of Tyranosaurus rex tooth casts with my camera lens for scale.
In the picture above, both teeth belong to the famed tyrant lizard king Robert CaliforniaTyrannosaurus rex itself! The tooth on the top is larger, but it wouldn't have appeared that much larger in the mouth of the animal. The reason behind that is the darker brown part on the left of the tooth is actually the root of the tooth, and would have been inside the animals skull. The tooth underneath, the darker brown one, is a shed tooth crown. Dinosaurs, unlike mammals, have an infinite supply of teeth, and if they lost a tooth it simply didn't matter! They would grow another one in its place in a few weeks.
Stan, the Tyrannosaurus rex skull on display at the Morrison Natural History Museum. Look on the upper jaw. See the largest tooth, just about in the middle of the tooth row? Let's zoom in and take an inside look!
This is a view from the inside of the Tyrannosaurus skull from above, a view that the lawyer from Jurassic Park probably didn't find quite as fascinating. See the largest tooth in the middle of the picture? Notice how there's another little bump at the top of the tooth row, where the teeth are emerging from the maxilla bone. That's actually another tooth growing in underneath! If we CT scanned the original fossil, you'd be able to see all sorts of teeth growing in underneath!
Here we have a dental battery of the famous Triceratops, on display at the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center (RMDRC) in Woodland Park, Colorado. Now take a look at the picture below.
Here, we have an individual tooth of Triceratops, out of the dental battery that you can see in the picture above. This specimen is from the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota, and also on display at the RMDRC.
The reconstructed jaws of the enormous, sixty foot long sharkMegalodon, on display at the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Like other sharks, as well as dinosaurs, you can see the several rows of teeth in the jaws of this guy, as well as the enormous biceps on the arms of the sexy Chris Pratt look-alike on the right. Biceps for scale are approximately 36 inches in diameter.
Here and below, we have pictures of part of the dentary of the large carnivorous theropod dinosaur Torvosaurus from the Late JurassicMorrison Formation. You can see on the end in the picture above, the tooth is growing in, while the rest of the teeth are pretty well established. This fossil is on display at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in Boulder.
Another shot of that Torvosaurus dentary seen above, you can see another tooth growing in as well, second from the left.
Shed teeth can be quite important for paleontologists when it comes to determining behavior of these extinct creatures. When paleontologists discover shed teeth of an animal, it can be a good indicator that the dinosaur was feeding on something nearby. Unfortunately, shed teeth are easily recognized as fossils by most laymen, and are therefore often picked up by the public or fossil collectors looking to make a quick buck, thereby destroying any information we could potentially gain from such knowledge. With good samples of shed teeth, like those employed by paleontologist Dr. Robert Bakker at the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation site of Como Bluff in Wyoming, scientists can learn about dinosaur diets, habits, habitats, and behavior, such as group movement, pack hunting, and even whether dinosaurs cared for their young!
A shed tooth crown of a Tyrannosaurus on display at the RMDRC.
A shed tooth of Nanotyrannus, a small cousin of Tyrannosaurus rex, from South Dakota.
Leidyosuchus, a type of Cretaceous crocodilian, with several shed teeth.
Brachychampsa, another Cretaceous crocodilian.
In 1877, local geologist Arthur Lakes discovered the very first bones of the dinosaurs Stegosaurus armatus and Apatosaurus ajax in Morrison, Colorado, and if you check out the Morrison Natural History Museum, you can actually see them there today! Surrounding the genoholotype of Apatosaurus ajax, the very first specimen called YPM 1860, was reported by Lakes to have seven shed teeth belonging to an allosaur surrounding the specimen. This indicates some that the predatory allosaurs were actually feeding on the Apatosaurus, which is very interesting information for paleontologists to have! Below are two pictures of part of that YPM 1860 specimen, with the Director and Chief Curator of the Morrison Natural History Museum Matthew Mossbrucker pointing to the shed allosaur tooth crown. These pictures are from the collections of the Yale Peabody Museum in Connecticut.
Shed allosaur tooth crown in the matrix of YPM 1860. Photo Credit: Matthew Mossbrucker
Shed allosaur tooth crown in the matrix of YPM 1860. Photo Credit: Matthew Mossbrucker
Non mammals rarely have more than one type of tooth in their mouth, and when they do, it can often be the cause of celebration. For example, in our previous post about the Latin and Greek root of two, we discussed two animals called Dimetrodon and Dimorphodon. Dimetrodon is an early ancestor of modern mammals, and its name means "two measures of teeth," as it has two different types of teeth in its mouth. Dimorphodon is a type of pterosaur (sometimes referred to as pterodactyls), a distant cousin of Pteranodon, whose name means "two morphs of teeth," again in reference to the fact that two types of teeth are in the animals mouth. The animal below is a dinosaur called Heterodontosaurus, who belongs to the eponymously named family of dinosaurs, the Heterodontosauridae. As you can see in the picture below, Heterodontosaurus has several larger teeth in the front of their mouth, and smaller teeth in the back.
Heterodontosaurus, a small little Early Jurassic dinosaur from South Africa. As you can see, there are two different types of teeth in their mouth, larger ones in the front and smaller ones in the back.
One of the things that make mammals special is our teeth. One of the most classic features of us mammals is our varied teeth. In us humans, we have our incisors and canines in front, and our chewing molars in the back. Since most mammals were only about the size of a shrew back during the Mesozoic Era, the time of the dinosaurs, in many places such as Como Bluff in Wyoming, paleontologists rely almost exclusively on the teeth of the tiny little mammals, since the teeth are much harder and more durable than the rest of the skeleton. Below, we have a trio of elephantid molars on display at the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Look at how varied the teeth are! The first two belong to animals whose teeth were better adapted for crushing and grinding tougher vegetation, while the last molar would have been better for mashing up grasses.
Cuvieronius tropicus, a Pliocene-aged elephantid from South Carolina. Large, high-cusped molars for crushing and grinding tougher vegetation.
Stegomastodon mirificus, a Pliocene and Pleistocene-aged elephantid, discovered in the Ashepoo River of South Carolina. Like Cuvieronius, Stegomastodon also has those large, high-cusped molars that are great for demolishing tough plant matter.
The Imperial mammoth (Mammuthus imperator) from the Pleistocene of Florida. These guys have a similar design of tooth to the dental battery of the ceratopsian dinosaurs mentioned above. The duck-billed dinosaurs, or hadrosaurs, also had a similar design. These teeth are broad and flat and good for mashing up grasses.
Shed teeth can be pretty important when paleontologists study fossils and extinct animals. They are good at establishing behavior, and can be pretty important for long-term studies of paleoenvironments. So when Owen uses the shed Indominus tooth in Jurassic World, believe it or not, that's actually something that paleontologists do from time to time!
You've probably heard me mention the Best Western Denver Southwest several times here on the blog: they are the folks who are changing their hotel into a dinosaur themed natural history museum/hotel extravaganza! Well, the lobby is now complete, as is much of the rest of the dinosaur themed paraphernalia around the grounds! Just a few more things are awaiting completion, but the hotel looks fantastic! I thought I'd share some pictures of the hotel for you guys here! For your information, the credit for all of the photos in this post goes to the Best Western Denver Southwest, unless it is otherwise noted or there is a stuffed Triceratops named Pyg in the picture! But first, you should meet the stars of the hotel: the Tally family!
First, let's start on the outside of the hotel! Here are the initial plans for the outside of the hotel:
And here is who greets you now when you walk inside: Stanley, the Stegosaurus!
Now, the lobby only just recently finished construction. Until recently, the lobby entrance looked like this:
The lobby just finished construction and looks GREAT now, but first let's look at a few more construction pictures, just so you can get a feel for how far along everything has come! First let's take a look at the pool! In the far future, the room should be partially enclosed from the outdoors!
At the beginning of construction, this place looked like it does in the picture below with Meredith!
A few months later, we have their two children, Caroline and Joe Tally, talking about the future plans for the pool with a camera crew from the BBC!
Finally, here are some pictures of the pool from very recently, it is now finished!
At least, the pool itself is finished. Sometime starting next year, the Tally's will be hiring someone to create a tile mosaic of some creatures that inhabited the Western Interior Seaway (which you can read more about HERE). Oh....and did I forget to mention that the pool is in the shape of the seaway? Pretty frickin' awesome if you ask me!
Now, a few pictures back, I mentioned that Joe and Caroline were talking to a BBC camera crew. What was that all about? Well, as you can imagine, this whole dinosaur hotel idea has been pretty popular to a whole lot of folks, and has made an appearance across a very wide range of media, one of which was a BBC story about it! Check out the link HERE! I also have several pictures of the filming! First off, we have several pictures of the camera on Greg!
As you might have noticed in the video, the film crew also stopped at the Morrison Natural History Museum, my place of work! There they interviewed the director and curator Matt Mossbrucker, and you can see a few of those pictures below!
Here the film crew watches as Matt excavates part of an Apatosaurus skull named Kevin upstairs in the lab!
Another big break for the hotel came from The Oatmeal! We have a lot to cover here in this post so I won't take the time to delve into it myself, but you absolutely HAVE to check it out by clicking HERE: it is fantastic, I guarantee it! These three screenshots below are credited to The Oatmeal!
It doesn't stop there, though! The Tallys have also been featured in Entrepreneur magazine! Here is a picture of the article, and you can read it yourself by clicking the link HERE!
And on the lighter side of things: have you ever heard of the popular YouTube series My Drunk Kitchen? If not, make sure to check it out because it is hysterical: but especially make sure to check out the episode with the hotel and the museum in it! Suffice it to say, the Tallys have definitely found their way down many different avenues of pop culture!
I don't really find it that surprising: what they're doing is freaking awesome! Check out these murals that they are having painted on the back of the building! The first one is a sort of walk through time, featuring all sorts of fun animals! The close up below is of a prehistoric mammal called Uintatherium!
Here's another mural for you to check out:
As if that isn't enough awesome paleo art for you, hanging in the rooms will be copies of some of the watercolors made by an awesome paleontologist named Arthur Lakes who excavated a lot of cool things from the area, including some of the bones that we have in the museum!
There are also some awesome banners hanging on the poles outside the hotel!
These aren't the only reasons why the hotel is super cool, though: not by a long shot! Usually every week, they have a Bird of Prey show and a Jungle Lady show!
First some pictures from the bird of prey shows! First, a few pictures of Anne Price holding a barn owl!
Next, we have a picture of her holding a turkey vulture!
The Jungle Lady is really cool too, here are some pictures of the animals that she brings, too! Here's Meredith with the albino Burmese python!
And an albino hedgehog!
Here's a picture of a veiled chameleon named Prince Charming!
This post is really long: I am splitting it up into two parts! Check back next time to learn about what REALLY makes the dinosaur hotel a DINOSAUR hotel!
One of a pair of songs that I made especially for Stegosaurus Week! "Bone Wars, Marsh and Cope" to the tune of "Two Black Cadillacs" by Carrie Underwood. Below is the link to the song:
Here are the lyrics to the song:
Full Lyrics:
1800s, Morrison, a big find was made
"If Cope got a bone, Marsh lost," Dr. Bakker say
They devoted their life,
To get the most bones, each other they'd fight
Two rivals fighting over fossils in the dirt and grime
[Chorus:]
And the teacher, Lakes, he was a good man
And Marsh and Cope, they used to be friends
But then the two of them wanted the other to die
Bye, Bye bye, Bye
1,500 species they wrote down
Dug them all out of rock and from the deep ground
They both refused to work together on the same side
Bye bye, bye bye, bye bye
Bone Wars, Marsh and Cope
Eleven years ago researchers found some more fossil bone
123 years they'd been buried there for oh so long Matthew Mossbrucker, from the Morrison Natural History Museum
The site had been reburied, waiting for the right time, right time
[Chorus:]
Even now some of the fossils in rocks and time are still encased
Mystries and new species found in the Quarry
Learning new secrets from the grave
[Chorus:]
Are you diggin' the songs? Well, then check out our playlist below!
In 2002, paleontologists from the Morrison Natural History Museum rediscovered an old paleontological dig site that had been missing since the late 1800s. One of many highly-contested sites of the so-called “Bone Wars” (a paleontological competition between rival paleontologists Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope), this dig site, dubbed Quarry 10, has been the site of many very interesting discoveries, as has another Quarry nearby, Quarry 5.
Quarry 10 had long thought to have been destroyed. Fossil hunter Arthur Lakes had reportedly dynamited the dig site on Marsh’s orders, to prevent Cope from getting any fossil bones out of it. However, it looks like Arthur Lakes was a very good man, and did not actually dynamite the dig site. According to the MNHM paleontologists, it looks like Lakes, not wanting to destroy something that was potentially very valuable, decided to merely cover up the site with some rocks in order to prevent other people from coming across it.
Further excavations at the Quarrys have yielded a number of VERY interesting fossils, including, amongst others, some baby Stegosaurus footprints! Multiple blocks have been uncovered with the footprints of Stegosaurus at all different stages of development, everything from infants to adults. On some of the blocks, multiple age groups are found in close conjunction to each other, and sometimes are found going the same way. This seems to indicate that Stegosaurus would move in groups consisting on members of multiple ages, a very interesting discovery indeed!
Want to learn more about Stegosaurus? Well, check out the Homebase for Stegosaurus WeekHERE to partake in more of the festivities! You can also check out a song that I wrote to the tune of Carrie Underwood's "Two Black Cadillacs" to learn more about the Bone Wars, below!
