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!
Most of you have probably heard about the so-called "pterodactyls," the flying creatures that lived during the time of the dinosaurs. Like most of us, you might not know exactly what a pterodactyl, more properly known as a pterosaur, is. Is it a bird? A bat? A dinosaur? Possibly even an insect? Or a distinct group of archosaurs that are thought to be fairly closely related to both dinosaurs and crocodilians, but scientists still aren't 100% positive how they fit into the reptilian family tree? Well, if you were thinking the last option, then lo and behold: you're right! Although the pterodactyls would have soared through the skies much like birds, bats, and even some insects of today, they would have been a distinct group altogether. They are also not quite dinosaurs: as the last option says, no one knows quite yet how exactly they fit in!
Another misconception you might be suffering under is what these extinct flying reptiles are actually called. Although most people call them pterodactyls, that isn't quite the correct term for them. Scientifically, these creatures are known as the pterosaurs. The name pterodactyls actually originates from a small pterosaur that is commonly found in the fine-grained Solnhofen fossil beds in Germany. Known as Pterodactylus, several hundred of these little reptiles have been discovered!
Pyg checks out a cast of one of the more famous Pterodactylus specimens from Solnhofen!
The Solnhofen quarries are world renknowed for their excellent fossils. Not only have a large number of Pterodactylus specimens been uncovered there, but it was from these quarries that the very first Archaeopteryx was uncovered in 1861. This primitive bird is one of the missing links between birds and dinosaurs, as it shares many features in common with both groups (such as feathers with birds and hand claws and teeth with dinosaurs). Other famous and important animals to come out of the Solnhofen Quarries include numerous crustaceans, insects, and even a small crocodile called Alligatorellus!
Pyg learns more about both the Pterodactylus specimen from above (left), but also about Archaeopteryx (right)! This cast is of the best specimen of this primitive bird, and was discovered in 1877! (The original specimen was, not the cast).
Part of the reason why the Solnhofen Quarry is so darn special is the extremely fine-detail preserved in the fossils. As I just mentioned in the previous paragraph, feathers have been discovered with Archaeopteryx specimens. Feathers, much like skin, hair, and other soft-tissues, rarely fossilize. As the science of paleontology slowly evolves, just like the animals it studies, paleontologists become better and better equipped to deal with, not to mention find, these soft-tissue elements of these extinct animals. More and more dinosaurs are being discovered with not only skin, but oftentimes feathers, such as Microraptor, an animal fairly closely related to Velociraptor of Jurassic Park fame; Dilong, an ancient ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex; and the bizarre therizinosaurs; amongst many others.
And it's not just feathers that fossilize, either. Wing membranes, composed of a flap of skin, are being discovered more and more frequently when it comes to pterosaurs. When it comes to Pterodactylus, scientists have such a large sample size that they are able to reconstruct much of the soft-tissue anatomy of this particular pterosaur! Scientists also have a very thorough growth series for this particular pterosaur, with individuals ranging from hatchlings, just a few days to a few weeks old, all the way to very old individuals with wingspans of around five feet, which, for a Pterodactylus, is very hefty indeed!
Although we've talked a lot about Pterodactylus, there are many other fascinating pterosaurs! I've taken a recent interest in pterosaurs, but before we dive on in to a wide variety of posts, I wanted to provide a brief introduction! Remember, this is a VERY brief introduction. For a more thorough introduction to pterosaurs, consult a book or something, or check back in the future as we learn more about pterosaurs! Don't hold me to it, but I feel like sometime in the near future, I will be talking about Dimorphodon and the anurognathids! Check back soon!
If I were to tell you to picture the environment of the
Morrison Formation 150 million years ago (MYA) in the LateJurassic Period,
most of you would probably have no idea what I was talking about. For some of you, the words “Morrison” and “Late
Jurassic” would trigger images of enormous sauropods like Apatosaurus and
Diplodocus, with the occasional platedStegosaurus, and the carnivorous
Allosaurus. For still fewer, images of
the ornithopodsCamptosaurus and Dryosaurus might appear, the theropods
Ceratosaurus and the smaller Ornitholestes, and perhaps another sauropod or
two. Fewer still might picture the
theropod Torvosaurus, the ankylosaurGargoyleosaurus, and the ornithopod
Othnielia. However, very few people
indeed would think of the medium sized, 20-foot long theropod Marshosaurus. Marshosaurus bicentesimus was first named in 1976, and received the second half of its scientific binomial name (bicentesimus) from the fact that it was described during the bicentennial of the United States! The first part of the name (Marshosaurus) honors the famous paleontologistOthniel Charles Marsh, one of two main participants in the extreme paleontological competition more than 100 years ago! If you want to learn more about the Bone Wars, be sure to check out a song that I wrote about it below: to the tune of Carrie Underwood's "Two Black Cadillacs!"
Anyways, all silliness aside, I actually got to see what is widely considered to be the most complete Marshosaurus specimen ever discovered about a month back when my friend Sam Lippincott and I got to go on a behind the scenes tour of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science with paleontologist Dr. Ian Miller! To be honest, even from a paleontologists perspective, the Marshosaurus specimen was definitely not the most exciting thing there, not by a long shot! Overall, all of the known material attributed to Marshosaurus taken together, there sure isn't much: four fragmentary skeletons, composed of bits and pieces of the spine, skull, and pelvis.
One of two small trays of bones belonging to Marshosaurus that the Denver Museum has on display in the paleo lab for the time being. Looks like we have some vertebrae and ribs!
One of two small trays of bones belonging to Marshosaurus that the Denver Museum has on display in the paleo lab for the time being. This box contains the right maxilla of the specimen. You actually have a right maxilla, too: just tap abut halfway between your nose and your mouth on the right side of your face: that's your right maxilla!
According to a brief article written by paleontologist Dr. Joe Sertich and published in the Denver Museum's magazine, the specimen of Marshosaurus held at the Denver Museum has "large portions of the skull....several vertebrae, bones from the back and neck, and ribs." Although it doesn't give us a lot to work with, such fragmentary remains are often all that paleontologists have to work with! It appears to have been enough for some scientists to come to the conclusion that Marshosaurus is a member of the megalosauroids, a distinct group of meat-eating theropod dinosaurs that includes the famous Megalosaurus, the very first dinosaur ever described! (I would say discovered, but most people suspect that ancient races have been discovering dinosaur bones for hundreds of thousands of years: but more on that later!) It is thought that Spinosaurus and its relatives are closely related to the megalosauroids as a group.
According to the article, the remains of the Denver Museum's Marshosaurus specimen were discovered at a site in Dinosaur National Monument that, due to a fluke of the law (I would say loophole, but I feel like that's too harsh of a word), allows the Denver Museum to collect fossils and take them back to their collections, as opposed to them going to the collections facility at the visitor's center. At this particular site, the remains of "at least six other animals made their way back to Denver." Amongst these remains includes the small, plant-eating ornithopodDryosaurus, and the very famous Stegosaurus, as well as a few bits and pieces of a crocodile!
So how likely is it that Marshosaurus will become as famous as Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops? Not very likely at all! But it's a cool animal, and I definitely hope we find the remains of more of these guys sometime in the future!
If you were to travel back 100 million years from where I live in Colorado, the face of a very, very different planet would emerge. I suppose emerge isn't necessarily the best word in this context: submerged is more of an adequate description! You see, unlike the mountains you would see in Colorado today, Late Cretaceous Colorado was even flatter than present-day Kansas....and a whole lot closer to sea level! Between about 100 and 70 million years ago (MYA), an enormous seaway stretched northwards from the Gulf of Mexico, and southwards from the Arctic. Within these waters, hundreds, perhaps thousands of animals flourished, many of which we have nothing like today. Massive sea turtles like Archelon slowly swam through the waters, while the long-necked plesiosaurs cruised around, snapping up fish before they even knew they were there. While sharks and mosasaurs were probably the most impressive denizens of the seaway, these massive carnivores fed on fish as well. And the subject of today's post is one of those fish: a 17-foot long beastie called Xiphactinus.
Due to the numerous pictures uploaded to Pinterest by the Best Western Denver Southwest hotel (read more about it HERE), I'm going to be using a lot of pictures from this site! Make sure you check it out by clicking HERE! Unless otherwise noted, photo credit for all of the pictures in this post goes to that Pinterest page!
Why did I call Xiphactinus (pronounced zye-FACT-un-us) "The Inception Fossil?" Well, that's a description that I came up with (don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise!) that has to do with one of the most interesting things about Xiphactinus: numerous specimens of the fish have been found with the remains of other fish in its stomach! Just as the premise behind Inception is "a dream within a dream," so too are specimens of Xiphactinus sometimes "fish within a fish!" The specimen below is a thirteen foot Xiphactinus that died with a fish known as Gillicus arcuatus in its stomach!
Unlike sharks, Xiphactinus would have been unable to bite off chunks of flesh from its prey, and instead would have had to swallow its prey whole, which is what makes the Inception Fossils so spectacular! Some paleontologists propose that this lack of chewing may have been what killed some of these Xiphactinus specimens, and that they actually choked to death on their last meal! I suppose it's possible, but I don't actually know enough about these specimens to be a very good authority on them!
The next three pictures below are pictures that I took of a specimen that I saw a week or so ago. Long story short, my friends Isabel and Sam Lippincott and I had gone to a presentation given by paleontologist Dr. Ian Miller about the Snowmastodon Project a few months back, and he was impressed with Sam's paleo drawings when we showed him after the lecture. He invited us to come on down to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science so that he could show us around behind the scenes, which he very kindly did a few weeks ago! These are pictures I took of the 80 MY old Mancos Shale specimen of Xiphactinus, which was discovered in 1966 by some kids who had been hunting with their dad near Snowmass in Colorado. They had stumbled across the rib cage of the animal, and had notified the Denver Museum. The next summer, the museum excavated the remarkably complete, 13-foot specimen, taking it back to the museum, where it has been stored to this day!
Here are some more cool pictures from the Pinterest page! This is a diorama of paleontologist Charles Sternberg caught in the act of discovering one of his "Inception fossils!"
And here are another pair of reconstructions of Xiphactinus!
Make sure to check out the Pinterest page of the Best Western Denver Southwest by clicking HERE!
If you are in a zoo or out in the wild, differentiating between a lion and a tiger is much less impressive than many other feats, such as walking and chewing gum or recognizing that yellow snow is not for consumption. However, when all you have is their bones, differentiating between the two becomes much more of a challenge.
According to the authors of the excellent book "The Big Catsand Their Fossil Relatives," around the turn of the century (meaning the 1800s to the 1900s), French paleontologist Marcelin Boule devised a number of criteria to differentiate the skeletons of these two animals from each other. However, these criteria aren't just "the lion has an extra vertebra," or "the tiger has a striped femur." Nothing that simple. It's more like "the tiger has a slightly more pointy fronto-nasal suture as it reaches towards the posterior end of the skull." Yeah. For the most part, not all that explicit. In the picture below (scanned from the Big Cat book mentioned above, all photo credit goes to them), you can see how subtle these differences can be.
So what are the implications for paleontologists? Ultimately, it shows us all how very little we can actually figure out about animal behavior from their bones, as well as how very similar such different creatures can be. Sure, looking at the skull of a lion or a tiger, most people would have little difficulty figuring out that they ate meat. But would looking at that slightly pointier fronto-nasal suture in the tiger really show us how much less social it is compared to the lion? Would the minute differences in the fronto-parietal suture reveal that the male lion sports a mane? Would any sort of suture be able to tell us that the lion is one of very few cats to sport a solid colored coat (like the mountain lion and the jaguarundi), while the tiger sports orange and black stripes? In the end, these minute differences in the bones remind us that we will probably never be able to learn everything there is to know about ancient and extinct species, and that there are probably many more extinct animals out there that are waiting to be discovered. It's more than likely that we already have the bones: we just need to tools to differentiate between them.
This was the birthday post of Tom Bonan! Happy birthday, Tom! If you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animals, and I will do my best to get a post in! And if you like what you are reading, please feel free to follow us here or via Facebook!
When it's a placodont! All right, so they're technically not turtles. Instead, they are a classic example of the fascinating phenomenon known as "convergent evolution," as we shall soon see!
Placodonts were a fascinating group of marine reptiles that lived during the Triassic Period in the Mesozoic Era, between around 235 and 200 million years ago (MYA), and thought to have a common ancestor with the long-necked plesiosaurs and the long-necked nothosaurs, all of which are in the large group called the saruopterygians. As a group, the placodonts are sometimes referred to as "walrus turtles," due to their diet of molluscs and other shelled invertebrates and, of course, their general appearance.
Like the turtles and tortoises of today, the placodonts would not have been all that quick and nimble. Their weight would have made them negatively buoyant, akin to the manatees and sea cows of today, meaning that they would have had no trouble swimming along the bottom of the ocean, snapping up molluscs and other shelled invertebrates, and using their large, flattened cheek and palatal teeth to crush them down. It's also possible that they scraped algae off of marine rocks and swallowed it whole, letting it slowly digest in their massive guts! Like modern sea turtles, the placodonts are thought to have been amphibious, spending most of their time (sleeping, chillaxing, and other activities) on land, but dipping into the water to feed, akin to the extant marine iguana of the Galápagos Islands.
Although younger placodonts would have been especially vulnerable to predation from many different types of animals, many paleontologists puzzle over why the ponderous adult placodonts would have needed this armor, as there don't seem to be any marine predators capable of making a meal out of them that lived at the same time. Of course, as we mentioned before, they probably spent much of their time on land and, as we also mentioned before, their awkward build would have left them particularly vulnerable to attack. So to counter this, some of the placodonts started to evolve in a very turtle-like appearance. Placodus, the animal whose name is lent to the entire group, displays a single row of dermal ossifications above its neural spines down its back. This dermal armor (a fancy way of saying "skin armor," in which the skin hardens into an armor like structure, as seen in the armadillo) would have helped to protect the animal from attack. Earlier, more primitive genera, such as Paraplacodus, lack this dermal ossification. However, other, more derived placodonts take this ossification of the dermals to a whole new level.
Remember Henodus, the first picture in this post? Henodus is one of those dermal armorers (I don't think that's actually a word) that took the ossification of the dermals to a whole new level. Outwardly similar to the turtle shell, the placodont armor was composed of a number of polygonal ossicles, while the shells of turtles are composed of large plates. Two other placodonts that were extremely well armored include Cyamodus, as well as the VERY turtle-looking creature, Placochelys.
Like many other animals, the placodonts became extinct at the end of the Triassic Period. Many groups did survive, however, and one of those groups that survived through to the Jurassic Period was actually the turtles! 220 MYA, the placodonts were sharing the seas with what would one day become the hard-shelled reptiles adored by so many people!
This is the birthday post of Darlene Neher! Happy birthday, Auntie Dar! If
you like what you are reading, please feel free to follow us here or via
Facebook! And remember, if
you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at
cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animal, and I
will do my best to get a post in!
So as you probably know (at least if you've been following us here for Stegosaurus Week), the whole point of the special week was to celebrate Stegosaurus Dayat the Morrison Natural History Museum in Morrison, Colorado! But what Stegosaurus-related exhibits does the Morrison Natural History Museum even have? Well. I am so glad you asked. Let's dive on in!
The first Stegosaurus-related thing that you will see is just a small exhibit, whose size is not a good representation of its importance. The four groups of bones that you see here are part of the holotype specimen of Stegosaurus! It was with these bones, as well as the rest of the specimen (part of which is at the Morrison Museum, the rest in the collections at Yale in Connecticut) that paleontologistOthniel Charles Marsh first named and described the genus Stegosaurus in 1877, during the famous (or rather, infamous) Bone Wars. Below, we have a picture with the four different groups of bones highlighted in red.
The first bone that we see below is part of one of the plates of Stegosaurus! The entire specimen actually extends back several inches, but the fossil part of the specimen is only on the very top layer.
Next, we have part of the femur of Stegosaurus!
Here we have two different types of vertebrae of Stegosaurus, lumbar and caudal (back and tail) vertebrae.
The next picture is an illustration by paleoartist Fabio Pastori of what this animal would have looked like. Meet Stegosaurus armatus, one of four species of Stegosaurus that are currently considered to be valid!
Next, we have some more VERY interesting Stegosaurus fossils, as well as a cute little baby Stegosaurus model! This little guy below is about a foot long, and is a life-size representation of the animal that would have made that footprint. Besides being the very first baby Stegosaurus footprint discovered anywhere in the world, this footprint is especially interesting because it shows that the baby Stegosaurus was walking on its back legs, without its front legs touching the ground!
Here we have another Stegosaurus footprint: or rather, a trio of footprints! The main footprint on this slab of Jurassic-aged rock contains what is largely considered to be the best adult Stegosaurus hind foot track in the world!
This footprint-containing slab is of particular importance to the paleontological community for another reason other than preservation quality: not only does the slab contain a very well preserved hindfoot track of an adult Stegosaurus, it also contains a forefoot track, probably from the same individual, as well as a partially crushed juvenile Stegosaurus track. This partially crushed juvenile Stegosaurus track is of particular importance, as it seems to be pretty strong evidence that the adult and the juvenile were traveling together!
Next, we have a cast of a skull of Stegosaurus, next to a cast of the foot of the animal, as well as a reconstruction of the foot itself!
Next, we have a VERY interesting block of fossil-containing rock!
It all started when the block was brought into the museum because of the dinosaur bones, like the rib bone you can see below from an unidentified dinosaur....
....and these bones, on the back of the block. It wasn't until the block was brought inside the museum that researchers noticed something that they hadn't been able to see outside: some tiny dinosaur footprints!
Here are two of the footprints, below. The one on the left, about the size of the palm of my hand, is thought to belong to a mid-sized ornithopod, likely a hypsilophodont or a heterodontosaur, we don't really know. The much smaller one on the right (which isn't much larger than a house cats) is even harder to identify, and could belong to a wide variety of dinosaurs.
Here is another picture by Fabio Pastori, depicting the small ornithopod that might have made the tracks.
The other tracks on the slab are by and large considered to be much more interesting. What you are looking at below are some more baby Stegosaurus footprints! Remember the baby Stegosaurus footprint that we discussed below, and remember the model of the animal that was thought to have made it? The model is about the size of the animal that is thought to have made the little tracks on the left in the picture below! What's particularly interesting about these footprints, however, is that they show the footprints of at least two individual Stegosaurus, each probably just a few months old, superimposed on each other! This seems like pretty good evidence that these guys were also moving in groups, just like the other slab of Stegosaurus footprints shows us with older individuals! The smaller footprint on the right (again, around the size of a domestic cat's footprint) is from a much smaller individual, probably just a hatchling! It is also possible that this hatchling was moving with the other juveniles, as well!
This is a model of the hatchling Stegosaurus that made the footprint on the right in the three pictures that we have above.
Finally, we have a size comparison of footprints of Stegosaurus at different ages! The bottom one is from an infant Stegosaurus, maybe an inch and a half or so in diameter. The top one is from an adult, larger than your average dinner plate!
After I posted this video, Matthew Mossbrucker, the director of the Morrison Natural History Museum, commented on the post, with some very important and interesting information! Here is what Mr. Mossbrucker had to say:
"Quite a few folks have pondered this through the years - myself included. Allow me to put on my Dr. Ruth field hat for a moment. Heinrich Mallison's concept of the African stegosaur Kentrosaurus mating seems plausible to me. I've assumed this myself as a default mating position for these animals. My read of the tail base in Stegosaurus is a bit different than Brian Switek's analysis. While it is true that our North American stegosaurs had limited up-down motion at the base of the tail, stegosaurs do something for ornithischian dinosaurs: they have the ability to twist their tails in a corkscrew-like fashion. I can envision a standing female Stegosaurus twisting her tail to one side and therefore removing obstacles for her mate. Unlike the boated models in your photo, a living Stegosaurus would have been able to stand and even walk on its hind-limbs with grace. So, therefore I see no barrier putting a male into mating position. So, there you have it."
There we have it indeed! I hope you find that enlightening, as well as the video! The dilemma definitely makes more sense after hearing what Mr. Mossbrucker has to say!
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!
Stegosaurus lived in western North America during the Late Jurassic Period, about 150 million years ago (MYA). Today, we find its remains in the Morrison Formation, named after the tiny town of Morrison in Colorado. What was going on in Colorado at that time? What was the depositional environment like, the environment that laid down the sediment that would one day become the famed Morrison Formation?
Well, according to paleontologist Dr. Robert Bakker in an article about the re-discovery in 2002 of some old paleontological quarries (CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE) in the Smithsonian Magazine, the environment was very much like the kind of environment seen in Uganda today: a “hot tropical woodland that was dry for most of the year.”
What about the animals, though? Dr. Bakker also said in the article that to “understand the Late Jurassic, you need to understand the common animals, which means Apatosaurus.” Most people are familiar with this massive animal: about 100 feet long (around the length of three school buses put end to end to end), and weighing around as much as eight African elephants, Apatosaurus was definitely a heavyweight of the Morrison biota!
What other animals were running around though? There are a great many dinosaurs, as well as many other animals, that were living in this area at that time, but in this post we are only going to look at one more: Camptosaurus and Allosaurus. All right, I lied. We’ll look at two more.
First off, we have Camptosaurus. To be honest, Camptosaurus doesn’t really look all that special. A small- to mid-sized ornithopod, Camptosaurus was only about fifteen feet long, and didn’t really appear to have any obvious defenses. However, discoveries of articulated Camptosaurus skeletons (indicating that the bones were fossilized were they were deposited, i.e. where the animal died, and weren’t washed together in a big mumble-jumble like at Dinosaur National Monument) in close conjunction with articulated Stegosaurus skeletons seems to indicate that these two herbivores liked to hang out together. But why? Why would they open themselves up to competition and potential conflict like that? Well, analysis of the brains and skulls of these two animals suggests that perhaps by hanging out together, the dinosaurian duo could avoid much deadlier conflict. Studies have shown that the sensory organs of Camptosaurus and Stegosaurus would have differed in very critical ways. The sense of Stegosaurus would have been akin to a rhinoceros, or perhaps myself as well (at least without my contacts), in that it would have had a pretty good sense of smell, but not very good vision. Camptosaurus, on the other hand, appears to have had quite acute vision, which has led to an interesting proposition by researchers: that Camptosaurus acted as a lookout for herds of Camptosaurus and Stegosaurus. If a predator was spotted (say, an Allosaurus or a Ceratosaurus), then Camptosaurus would have been able to alert the herd, and Stegosaurus would have been able to move to the forefront to defend them all against attack.
The last dinosaur that we are going to look at today is Allosaurus, a large, meat-eating theropod dinosaur. It occurs to me as I type this that I have done a very thorough job on Allosaurus before, so instead of typing this all again, I am going to be lazy and redirect you to another post that I did awhile back, entitled “23-Fact Tueday: Allosaurus.” Hidden within the post (but not too hard to find) are 23 Facts about Allosaurus. Yeah. Pretty much says it in the title. Anyways, check out that post to learn more about Allosaurus, as well as the rest of the Morrison ecosystem! And make sure to check back tomorrow, as we learn about stegosaurs from the rest of the world!
Want to learn more about Stegosaurus? Well, check out the Homebase for Stegosaurus WeekHERE to partake in more of the festivities!
