The Denver Gem and Mineral Show Part 1: Giant Ammonites, Burrowing Amphibians and Leaping Lizards

On Sunday, the 16th, my friend Masaki Kleinkopf and I visited the Denver Gem and Mineral Show at the Denver Merchandise Mart.  It was a ton of fun!  They had booths from all over the place, like the Morrison Natural History Museum and the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center, an excellent dinosaur museum up in Woodland Park near Colorado Springs!  One of the most exciting things by far was when a pair of women came up to us, and asked if they could film us just going about our business.  They were part of a group making a movie under the working title "Quarry."  It's apparently going to be about American Paleontology, and it looks like Masaki and I may have made the part about why Americans love paleontology, and especially dinosaurs, so much!

MESSAGE FROM ZACK FROM THE FUTURE:  Hello, everyone.  This is Zack Neher.  I have travelled to this post from the future.  I wanted to give you a link to the Homebase for these posts.  I am like Rose Tyler, leaving clues in the form of Bad Wolf.  Except this is not quite like that at all really.  Anyways.  The Homebase for the series is HERE.

Creeper shot of the film crew following us, with a large iridescent ammonite in the foreground.  Notice the distinct chambers.  How magnificent.

We also saw Dr. Robert Bakker there.  After I said hello, he waved me over and said "You're a smart kid.  Can you tell me where the nostrils are on this thing?"  The "thing" that he was referring to was a baby Eryops skeleton that he has been working on, a Permian amphibian that lived in the south eastern United States.  Remains have been discovered in both Texas and New Mexico, and it was a contemporary of Dimetrodon, who most likely preyed upon it.  Upon my examination, I promptly tried to prove his assessment of my intelligence wrong, as I pointed all over the skull in my attempts to locate the nostrils.  Turns out, the nostrils were right where they should be.  They were just confusing because in life, the animal would have been able to cover the nostrils with little flaps of bone, sealing off the nostrils from dirt and such while it was burrowing.  Pretty interesting stuff!

Dr. Bakker's baby Eryops.  The snout is facing the pen in the left of the image, and the two holes that you can see are the orbitals, or the eye sockets.  The googly eyes are explained below.

Another picture from a few weeks ago.  This was taken at the Morrison Museum when my friend Kristie Chua came up to visit.  Dr. Bakker, when asked "Why the googly eyes?"  replied "I put the googly eyes on because I like it." 

We also saw a number of giant ammonites.  Below are a few pictures of the better ones, probably the largest I have ever seen!  The only other possible contender that I can think of was one that I saw at the Heritage Museum of the Texas Hill Country in (you guessed it!) Texas.  That one was a huge, probably five or six feet wide, imprint of an ammonite, right outside the entrance to the museum.  This was the same place that I have talked about before, in my Acrocanthosaurus on the Prowl post.  Great place!  I definitely recommend checking it out if you are ever in the Canyon Lake/San Antonio area of Texas!

The Heritage Museum ammonite.  Perhaps my memory is a bit off.  But I still remember it being incredibly, enormously large.  Perhaps the picture makes it looks smaller?  A mystery.  I suppose I will have to check it next time we go back there now won't I.

The ammonites, in order of amazingness.  Probably about a two, two and a half foot diameter.

Although its size was less impressive, perhaps only a foot or two wide at the most, it was most amazingly iridescent.  There were a large number of them here, but somehow I succeeded in capturing zero great pictures.  Go figure. 

Same story as above.  Not as impressive in size, but amazing in preservation quality.  Check out those septum!

Masaki next to one big ass ammonite! 

And Masaki with another big ass one!  This one a bigger ass!  Bigger ass one?  Bigger one.  A bigger one.

The third really cool thing that we saw there (that I am going to include in this post, at least) were these preserved lizards.  These lizards are from the genus Draco, and are found exclusively in Indonesia.  These lizards are remarkable as they can glide from tree to tree.  Many paleontologists and biologists speculate that this is what the earliest Pterosaurs would have looked like.  For those of you who don't know, Pterosaurs are the flying reptiles that were contemporaneous with the dinosaurs.  Often confused with the dinosaurs themselves, the Pterosaurs were distinct in that they were truly flying reptiles, and not a distinct grouping.  Calling Pterosaurs dinosaurs would be akin to calling a tiger salamander a mammal, on the sole observation that the tiger salamander is a contemporary of a squirrel.  Not so.

One specimen of the Draco lizards....

....and another!

Famous examples of Pterosaurs include (or "Pterosaurs That I Have Heard Of):

1. Anurognathus
2. Darwinopterus
3. Dimorphodon
4. Dsungaripterus
5. Eopteranodon
6. Eudimorphodon
7. Hatzegopteryx
8. Ornithocheirus
9. Peteinosaurus
10. Pteranodon
11. Pterodactylus
12. Pterodaustro
13. Quetzalcoatlus
14. Rhamphorhynchus
15. Sordes
16. Tapejara
17. Tropeognathus

You probably also know the Pterosaurs as the "Pterodactyls."  Probably should have prefaced with that.

A skull of Darwinopterus from the show.  This guy was at the booth for the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center, or RMDRC for short, an awesome museum up in Woodland Park.  

The wing of a good sized Pterosaur.  You can see at the bottom of the picture a white round thingy.  That's the ammonite featured in the picture with Masaki, above.  That should help give you an idea of the scale of the wing.  Probably around ten feet or so.  And get this; that whole thing is one enormously elongated pinky!

A fossil pterosaur from the show

Another fossil pterosaur from the show

Anyways, in the Imax production "Flying Monsters" with David Attenborough (FAVORITE.  IMAX.  EVER.), they talk about how many scientists speculate that these lizards of the genus Draco greatly resemble the earliest ancestors of the Pterosaurs.  Initially gliding from tree to tree to snatch flying insects in the air, eventually these small lizards would have become capable of powered flight.  Then, they would have grown larger and larger, until they became the biggest animals to ever take to the skies.  Except for humans, but really.  We don't really count.

Woodland Park on Dwellable

Cryolophosaurus: The Dinosaur in the Freezer

When you looked at that picture, you probably didn't think much of the background.  You probably just glanced at the dinosaur.  Well take a closer look at that background.  Where do you think it is?  I'll give you a hint.  This is what that area looks like today:

If you guessed Antarctica, then you are 100% correct!  During the Mesozoic Era, or the time of the dinosaurs, Antarctica was a very different looking place.  It would definitely have been a bit nippy at times, but nowhere near as cold as it is today, and was more of a cool temperate biome!  Cryolophosaurus, meaning "Cold Crest Lizard" in Latin (and also the dinosaur in the first picture above), lived during the Early Jurassic Period, more than 180 million years ago.  As you can see on the map below, the world looked quite different than it does today! 

Interestingly, Cryolophosaurus was originally called "Elvisaurus," named such for the small crest that it has on its head, and its similarity to the swoop of hair that Elvis had on his own head.  I don't know why they changed the name, but if you ask me, Elvisaurus is a better name all around!

The inspiration for this post came from something that I saw Dr. Thomas Holtz, a famous paleontologist, share on Facebook the other day regarding Cryolophosaurus.  It was an incredibly interesting reconstruction, but I am not sure how factually based it is, given the dubious nature of the placement of the dinosaur.  Last I had heard, Cryolophosaurus was outside the given range of dinosaurs that had feathers, so I believe that it might have just been an artistic liberty on the part of the author!  Regardless, it was pretty cool looking, and I wanted to share!  

We Interrupt Our Previously Scheduled Programming: Robert T. Bakker

So today I went in for an interview for a volunteer position at the Morrison Natural History Museum (you should check it out, it's pretty cool!).  I went in, and I met Robert Bakker.  He is pretty much like the Michael Phelps of paleontology.  He is really, really cool.  He and John Ostrom were pretty much the catalysts of the so-called "Dinosaur Renaissance," where the ideas of dinosaurs being cold-blooded, sluggish, stupid and slow were turned on their heads.  So that was pretty exciting.  Below is the link to his page on Wikipedia.  Very exciting stuff!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_T._Bakker

We will get back to the polar bears later in the day, but I had to talk about this first!

Evergreen on Dwellable

What REALLY Killed the Dinosaurs?

Today, almost all paleontologists believe in one of two scenarios that brought upon the downfall of the dinosaurs; the Silver Bullet Hypothesis, and the Blitzkrieg Hypothesis.  Proponents of the Silver Bullet Hypothesis consider the asteroid that hit Mexico 65.5 MYA to be the cause of the dinosaurs extinction, while fans of the Blitzkrieg Hypothesis believe that the asteroid worked in concert with other factors, like a number of extraordinarily large volcanic impacts and receding sea levels.  Although both of these hypotheses hold great weight, and stand up well to investigation, I find myself more in the Silver Bullet camp.  (If you are unsure, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gqq2rgOmi8 .  It's a bit long, but you can skip parts of it and still get the gist.  I was simply blown away after watching it, and landed smack-dab in the center of the Silver Bullet camp.)

However, this post is not to talk about the merits of the generally accepted dinosaur-death hypotheses; just like the post regarding the oddly named animals (http://thenaturalworld1.blogspot.com/2012/07/masiakasaurus-knopfleri-and-other.html), Scott Sampson's book Dinosaur Odyssey had another especially interesting tale, a tale about the many different hypotheses (over one hundred in all!) about how the dinosaurs died from over the years.  Here are some of the more interesting ones, quoted from Scott Sampson's book:

1.   Disease
2.   Slipped Vertebral Discs:  Because dinosaurs were so big
3.   Loss of Interest in Sex
4.   Poisonous Plants 1:  The consumption of these plants led to a deadly diarrhea amongst the dinosaurs
5.   Poisonous Plants 2:  The consumption of these plants led to a deadly constipation amongst the dinosaurs
6.   Fungal Invasions
7.   Climatic Change 1:  Global Warming
8.   Climatic Change 2:  Global Cooling
9.   Cosmic Radiation From a Supernova
10.  Egg-Eating Mammals
11.  Sunspots
12.  Nasty Aliens
13.  Not Enough Room on Noah's Ark
14.  The Racial Senility Hypothesis:  Dinosaurs, as a group, were young and restless when they first appeared in the Late Triassic Period.  During the Early Jurassic, the dinosaurs experienced "adolescence," as they expanded "in both form and diversity."  When they reached the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous, the dinosaurs had "reached their evolutionary peak;" they were middle-aged, and had nowhere to go but down.  Thus, in the Late Cretaceous Period, when the dinosaurs like Triceratops, Parasaurolophus, and Pachycephalosaurus grew interesting crests, frills and the like, these were "the result of hormones gone wild and certainly symbolic of a group on its way out."

Obviously, some of these solutions are more interesting than others, but all of them are, at this point in the study of dinosaurs, outdated.  But who knows: perhaps, someday soon, someone will discover proof that it was aliens, and not an asteroid, that ultimately did-in the dinos.

The Thagomizer of Stegosaurus

Stegosaurus is a very famous dinosaurs, one of the most famous, along with Triceratops and Tyrannosaurus.  All three of these dinosaurs have been found in Colorado; in fact, the first Triceratops bones were actually found in Denver, and Stegosaurus is the state dinosaur of Colorado!  Stegosaurus has also been found in Wyoming and Utah, in the Morrison Formation, as well as in Portugal.  The row of plates along its back make it very interesting looking, as do the spikes on the end of its tail, nicknamed a "thagomizer."  Holes in the vertebrae of a potential predator of Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, fit exactly with the size of one of the spikes on the tail of the Stegosaurus, showing that there was almost certainly a predator-prey relationship between the two, as was previously suspected.  Studies have shown that the tail end of Kentrosaurus, a close relative of Stegosaurus, also with a thagomizer on its tail, could have been brought around to the side of the dinosaur, potentially swatting at enemies trying to attack the Stegosaur from the side.

Finally, discoveries of articulated Stegosaurus skeletons show that the spikes were actually horizontal from the ground, as opposed to held at an angle, as you can see in the outdated and incorrect picture below.

It's an interesting word, though, isn't it: "thagomizer."  It certainly doesn't sound like a very sciency name; in fact, when I first heard it, I immediately thought it sounded like something out of one of my favorite comic strips, Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson.  Well, if you thought that as well, then you were actually surprisingly close to the mark, as the term did in fact come from a comic strip, another one of my favorites: The Far Side.

The term wasn't used scientifically until the year 1993, at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, by the one-time Curator of Paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science Ken Carpenter.  The name has been used multiple times since then, in different mediums; books and television shows (including another personal favorite, BBC's Planet Dinosaur), as well as places such as the Smithsonian Institution and Dinosaur National Monument.  Although an informal name, it is popular, and has amusing origins.

Gary Larson created a great number of hilarious The Far Side cartoons covering all sorts of topics.  However, it seems like a large number of them featured animals, or were in some way nature related.  You will undoubtedly see a great many of them in this blog as time goes on, but here are a few other amusing dinosaur ones.

Masiakasaurus knopfleri, and Other Interestingly Named Creatures

A few months ago, while reading Dr. Scott Sampson's book Dinosaur Odyssey (you probably know him as the guy from Dinosaur Train), he has a very brief section of his book where he talks about some interesting scientific names of sometimes not that interesting of creatures.  He presents nine of them, and here I present them to you, as well.

1.  Masiakasaurus knopfleri
This dinosaur, from Late Cretaceous Madagascar, was named by Scott Sampson and his colleagues, means the "vicious lizard of Knopfler," meaning Mark Knopfler, a famous musician.

 2.  Milesdavis zlichovianus
This trilobite was named after the famous jazz musician Miles Davis.

3.  Mozartella beethoveni
This wasp was named after two famous classical musicians, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.

4.  Dicrotenipes thanatogratus
This one is probably less obvious to most of you out there, but in Greek, thanatos means "dead" (think Thanos, the villain for the next "Avengers" movie from Marvel: he loves and worships death), and in Latin, gratus means "grateful."  This midge was named after the famous band, Grateful Dead.

5.  Montypythonoides riversleighensis
This extinct Australian snake was named after the Monty Python franchise, but unfortunately, the name is now outdated; its correct scientific name now is Morelia riversleighensis.

6.  Strigiphilus garylarsoni
Named after the famed cartoonist Gary Larson of The Far Side fame (watch for at least one post featuring him next week).  Besides having this owl louse named after him, also has had a beetle and a butterfly named in his honor. Regarding the owl louse, he said “I considered this an extreme honor. Besides, I knew no one was going to write and ask to name a new species of swan after me. You have to grab these opportunities when they come along.”

7.   Ninjemys oweni
"Owen's Ninja Turtle" is named after the famous group, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and was found in Pleistocene-aged rocks in Queensland, Australia.

8.  Gozillus

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0425/Mysterious-Godzillus-fossil-find-stumps-scientists

9.  Darthvaderum greensladeae
One of my personal favorites, this mite was named after the famous Darth Vader, from Star Wars.

What Is It? The Weekly Challenge #1 Answer

Well, it's that time of the week again!  We only had a few guesses this week, and no one got it exactly right, but there were some close guesses!  The two closest were Kristie C., who guessed an Adélie Penguin, and Masaki K. who guessed Cormorant.  Well, the correct answer to last weeks challenge is Waimanu.  Waimanu is the scientific name of the oldest known fossil penguin.  Two species are known, and both of them were found on the South Island of New Zealand.  One of the species, Waimanu manneringi, lived during the Paleocene, around 61.6 MYA; that means that the oldest known penguin was swimming the oceans only a few million years after the death of the dinosaurs!  Although Waimanu manneringi is the oldest KNOWN fossil penguin, it by no means is the oldest penguin.  In fact, it is quite likely that, were scientists to uncover a fossil that shows when penguins split off from the other orders of birds, we would not even recognize it as a penguin.  Waimanu had undoubtedly already adapted to a fully non-aerial lifestyle, and almost certainly behaved much like modern penguins do when it comes to breeding on land, near the ocean.


Works Cited:

Waimanu, the first penguin. (2010, January 30). Retrieved July 11, 2012, from https://fossilpenguins.wordpress.com/2010/01/30/waimanu-the-first-penguin/

The Biggest Carnivorous Dinosaur Part 3: Spinosaurus, The World's Largest Penguin

Spinosaurus quickly smashed its way to the top (literally!) following the success of Jurassic Park III.  At up to 56 feet (17 meters) in length, Spinosaurus (found in Egypt and Morocco) is unquestionably the longest carnivorous dinosaur that has ever been discovered, and by a significant margin, too.  But how could Spinosaurus be so successful when another carnivorous monstrosity, Carcharodontosaurus, lived in such close proximity?  The answer lies in what it ate; in fact, Spinosaurus appears not to have been as carnivorous as we once thought, and seems to in fact have been more piscivorous.  Essentially, it is thought that Spinosaurus might have survived on a diet consisting a great deal upon fish.

There is a great wealth of information that indicates the staple diet of Spinosaurus was fish.  Here we will take a more in-depth look at this evidence.

A picture of Spinosaurus drawn by the talented young artist Sam Lippincott.

1.  POSITION OF THE NOSTRILS:  Spinosaurus, unlike most other theropod (meat-eating) dinosaurs had nostrils situated very high up on its skull.  By contrast, most other theropods, like Tyrannosaurus, had nostrils very close to the front of the skull.  The nostril placement in Spinosaurus would have allowed it to stick its nose into the water quite deep, enabling it to hunt fish more effectively.

2.  SENSORY ORGANS ON THE TIP OF THE SNOUT:  Along with the high placement of the nostrils, Spinosaurus also had a number of small sensory organs at the front of the snout, revealed by CT scans.  These greatly resemble those of the crocodile, who uses them to sense where prey is by "seeing" tiny movements in the water.  Thus, a crocodile can attack its prey without ever seeing them with their eyes.  Spinosaurus appears to have been able to do much the same thing, making its hunting method of choice quite obviously effective, given its immense size.

3.  ISOTOPIC EVIDENCE:  A study of the isotopes in the skull of a Spinosaurus specimen revealed something quite interesting.  Spinosaurus shares a great deal of isotopic overlap with crocodiles, fairly aquatic animals.  By contrast, other carnivorous dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus have very different isotopic readings, indicating a terrestrial lifestyle.  Given the great deal of overlap possessed by Spinosaurus and crocodiles, it appears that Spinosaurus spent much of its life like a crocodile; semi-submerged in rivers and streams.

4.  THE TEETH TELL THE TALE:  Spinosaurus, unlike most other carnivorous dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus, Allosaurus, or the famous Velociraptor, possess conical, round teeth.  These other carnivores possess thin, blade-like teeth, made for slicing, crushing or tearing into other animals.  Spinosaurus has teeth much like a crocodile; round and conical.  These teeth are made for gripping and making sure that an animal does not escape. 

5.  THE TEETH TELL THE TALE....AGAIN:  Yet again, we come to the issue of teeth, and this is one of the most damning pieces of evidence of all.  During the time that Spinosaurus lived in North Africa, another inhabitant of these streams and rivers was a saw-toothed fish called Onchopristis.  Two fossils involving Onchopristis have been discovered in conjunction with the remains of Spinosaurus.  One was the skull of a Spinosaurus; imbedded in one of the tooth sockets was a vertebrae from an Onchopristis.  The other discovery was the barb of an Onchopristis embedded in the jaw of the Spinosaurus.

6.  PLUS:  We only ever seem to find Spinosaurus in shallow aquatic environments, where fishy prey would be abundant.

All in all, it seems like an inevitable conclusion to draw that Spinosaurus was, in fact, a piscivore, at least much of the time.  A fascinating example of the crazy turns evolution can take.

The Biggest Carnivorous Dinosaur Part 2: Carcharodontosaurus Vs. Spinosaurus

As I promised yesterday, today we are going to take a closer look at Carcharodontosaurus (kar-kar-o-DON-to-SAUR-us).  Carcharodontosaurus was a relative of Colorado's own Allosaurus.  However, Carcharodontosaurus was four times larger, and found in Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Niger.  At around 46 feet long, Carcharodontosaurus was similar in size to yesterday's Giganotosaurus (pronounced jig-a-NOTE-o-saur-us), and longer than Tyrannosaurus, though Tyrannosaurus was undoubtedly much bulkier.  Regardless, Carcharodontosaurus was a monster-sized killer, and almost certainly had a monster-sized appetite to match.  It is almost a certainty that such an animal would have a fairly large territory, and would have needed to eat a great deal to maintain its fast metabolism, similar to your average teenage dude.

Clearly, such a large predator had little competition from other carnivorous dinosaurs.  Or did it?  As a matter of fact, 95 MYA, North Africa was home to not one, but two monster-sized killers, Carcharodontosaurus, and the even longer, 50 foot (15 meter) Spinosaurus.  (Some not so conservative estimates even place the maximum size for Spinosaurus as 60 feet (18 meters) in length, but this does seem extreme.)

Now, in the modern day, predators can inhabit the same area.  Take the plains of Africa, for example; in many places, lions, leopards, cheetahs, wild dogs and hyenas all inhabit the same area.  There is a clear hierarchy amongst the animals, and each seems to get enough to eat.  However, this is partly because each animal exploits a slightly different set of resources, so contact amongst them is less frequent than if all five of the large carnivores all hunted the same animal, say, the Thomson's Gazelle.  This is a phenomenon known as resource partitioning, and it occurs all over the place in nature, arguably one of the most important factors involving ecology and evolution. Scientists believe that a similar sort of partitioning took place between the two mega-carnivores of Mid-Cretaceous North Africa, with Carcharodontosaurus being a terrestrial carnivore, while Spinosaurus took to the water.  We will conclude "The Biggest Carnivorous Dinosaur" trilogy tomorrow with a look at the environment Spinosaurus was able to so successfully exploit.

A fantastic visual representation of resource partitioning amongst large herbivorous mammals in Africa.  The giraffe, the zebra, and the wildebeest will all inhabit the same area and eat plants, but the types of plants can differ.  Photo Credit: Ted and Gail Neher

The Biggest Carnivorous Dinosaur Part 1: Move Over, T-Rex (Kind Of)

Tyrannosaurus rex, the "Tyrant Lizard King," has long been a dinosaurian favorite the world over.  He is quite the interesting animal, and simply massive; the publicity received by him and the giant-sized Velociraptor in Jurassic Park helped a bit, I'm sure!  However, T-rex is no longer thought to be the largest carnivorous dinosaur.  Well, yes he is.  But he isn't.

A picture of the Tyrannosaurus rex specimen Stan at the Morrison Natural History Museum.

Imagine someone who has never heard of the giraffe and elephant asks you which one is biggest.  You might say the elephant, because the elephant is much heavier and has more bulk.  But what if they mean which animal is taller?  Somewhat of a dilemma.  So using words like "biggest" (as I have done here) is not the best way to go.  So Tyrannosaurus still seems to be the heavyweight champion, there are other dinosaurs that, while more slender, were probably longer.  Kind of confusing, I know.

The fact that T-rex has some serious competition has put barely a dent into his popularity, and some of the other larger carnivores are receiving a lot of attention, too. The longest of these carnivores, which we will learn about on Wednesday, was possibly around 20% larger than Tyrannosaurus Rex!  Today, we are going to look at another enormous killer, of South American origin; the massive, the monstrous, Giganotosaurus.

A Giganotosaurus on display at Fernbank Museum, in Atlanta, Georgia

Giganotosaurus is an estimated 46 feet long, comparable in length to the average Tyrannosaurus!  We do have some specimens of Tyrannosaurus that are around the same size as Giganotosaurus, but either way: Giganotosaurus was a massive animal! Of course we don't actually know for sure what the maximum size for any dinosaur is as, unlike for most living animals, we generally have a relatively small sample set, but we can make close estimates based on the finds we have.  And these estimates indicate that Giganotosaurus grew to simply massive proportions.  One of the largest terrestrial animals that we know of is Argentinosaurus (who, like Giganotosaurus, was also found in Argentina), a sauropod dinosaur that lived at the same time as Giganotosaurus.  For Giganotosaurus to prey on even the juveniles of such a large herbivore, it would similarly need to grow to massive proportions.

Giganotosaurus vs. Argentinosaurus at Fernbank Museum, in Atlanta, Georgia

Giganotosaurus vs. Argentinosaurus at Fernbank Museum, in Atlanta, Georgia

This pattern repeats itself all over the world, the pattern of gigantism evolving in sauropods, along with the subsequent evolution of gigantism in the theropods (meat-eating dinosaurs), is a pattern repeated throughout the world, and throughout the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods of the Mesozoic Era, the two periods in time when the rule of the dinosaurs was absolute.  Here are some more of the predator-prey, giant-sized carnivore/giant-sized herbivore relationships seen throughout the Mesozoic.  The first animal named will be the predator, and the second will be the sauropod.

Asia, 160 MYA: Sinraptor, Mamenchisaurus
Europe, 125 MYA: Neovenator, Ornithopsis
North America, 150 MYA: Allosaurus, Diplodocus
North Africa, 95 MYA: Carcharodontosaurus, Paralititan

In tomorrows post, we will look at the last relationship, and focus on another larger (or longer) than life carnivore, Carcharodontosaurus.

Fossil Hunting 6/30

Yesterday, my friend Masaki Kleinkopf and I went to check out a fossil site that I had found with another friend a couple of days ago. It looks to be Laramie Formation (towards the end of the death of the dinosaurs, in the Late Cretaceous), and a river seems to have been in this area. The most exciting fossilized things we found was a bunch of fossilized wood, as you can see below.

Fossilized wood

More fossilized wood

However, the most exciting that we saw of the day was definitely a wolf spider, probably three inches across. We saw the web first, and I was going to try and get the spider to come out with a long piece of grass (didn't want to get too close!) when I accidentally startled a grasshopper into the web. It couldn't get out, and suddenly the wolf spider appeared, and attacked it. It ran up probably ten or fifteen times, stabbing the grasshopper with its mandibles (I think that's what it was doing, anyways) and with its two front legs held up in the air. After awhile, the grasshopper was still alive, and the wolf spider retreated back down its hole. When we came back fifteen or so minutes later, the grasshopper was gone; probably dragged down by the wolf spider into its burrow to be devoured. I took a pic of the spider, but I think the  spider moved when it saw my phone, so all you can see is a blurry shot of the burrow.

Wolf spider burrow.  I think that the darker black in the burrow might be the  spider.

Besides wood, the Laramie Formation has yielded a number of dinosaur remains as well, among them being Edmontosaurus, Ornithomimus, Thescelosaurus, Triceratops, and Tyrannosaurus.  But first, here is a map of where the Laramie Formation is in Colorado.  Many of the dinosaurs that I mention below were found up in the north, near Fort Collins I believe.