Terrible Lizards

We've covered one small, unadorned and under-rated herbivorous ornithischian already this series in Psittacosaurus and here's another one in the remarkable little heterodonotosaurs. Another set of animals for which we have some superb skeletons and lots of interesting features that are potentially very revealing about the evolution of dinosaurs in general (and ornithischians in particular) and yet they get very little love. As usual all the attention goes to the biggest dinosaurs, the carnivores and the showiest ones with big crests, but we here at Terrible Lizards want to stand up for the little fun dinos too, so here's a whole show on them. Plus we get joined by comedian and artist Bec Hill who has a question about sauropod feet with a twist.

Links:

A shot blog post from Dave with some photos of the little filamented Tianyulong: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/tiayulong/

And a much longer post with one tiny photo about the implications of filaments (feathers?) in these animals (though it's quite old now): https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/blah-blah-feathered-ornithischians-yawn/

http://www.bechillcomedian.com/

@bechillcomedian

Bec's dinosaur song with Jay Foreman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ydJU-bVXaA

Iszi is in Dave's house! We have talked many times about the fact that birds are dinosaurs and we've covered some of the modern evidence that links them together, but how did we get to this point? In this edition we look at the historical arguments for the origins of birds and how they went from a groups that had no obvious evolutionary home to some early flirtations with dinosaurs, places around the reptile tree and then eventually settled to their now familiar place. It covers a lot of odd ideas and the problems of limited data and Charles Darwin even pops up and gets a mention. Appropriately, our guest this week is Suzy from the Casual Birder podcast and she wants to ask Dave all about dinosaur eyes and their colours and shapes.

Links:

The casual birder podcast: https://casualbirder.com/links

www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

@iszi_lawrence

@dave_hone

facebook.com/terrriblelizardspodcast

We have talked before about how large some of the giant sauropods were and how being big can really affect your biology, but just how do palaeontologists weight dinosaurs from incomplete skeletons and how accurate will these methods be? Well happily we have a podcast that will tackle those very questions and delve into the history and mystery of working out how heavy dinosaurs were, how we used to get it very wrong and why even now we are not that right. Joining us as a guest this time is F1 podcaster Spanners who, it turns out, is a huge dinosaur enthusiast. He wants to ask a rather different question about dinosaur domestication than you might first expect.

Links:

Spanner's podcast: missedapexpodcast.com @SpannersReady

An old Guardian piece by Dave (for which we should point out, he didn't write the headline) on the biggest dinosaurs: https://www.theguardian.com/science/lost-worlds/2014/may/19/have-we-reached-peak-dinosaur

An old blog post by Dave on the problems of data gaps when making size estimates: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/estimating-dinosaur-sizes/#more-4

Plus Richard Ready - Spanners from the Missed Apex Podcast on what would happen if more dinosaurs survived the KT extinction

www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

@iszi_lawrence

@dave_hone

It's time to give some love to some dinosaurs that don't get enough and pretty much top of that list needs to be Psittacosaurus. This (mostly) little dinosaur is one of the earlier ceratopsains but lacking the size, horns and frills of their more notable cousins, it's sadly all too easy to see why they get ignored. But that's a shame because as well as having some neat little features of their own (like giant cheek spikes), these animals are among the most common of any dinosaur. We have hundreds and hundreds of specimens in museums and in addition to innumerable skeletons, there are also a couple of superbly preserved ones with skin and other features intact so they are well worth some attention. Later in the episode we are joined by Sabrina and Garret from the 'I Know Dino' podcast (who are obviously our arch rivals) who have a question for Dave about some obscure South America theropods. And if you want more on that front, check out their recent episodes as guess who they have had on as guests recently?

Links:

A link to the I Know Dino website and podcast: https://iknowdino.com

Lots of close-up photos of the brilliantly preserved specimen with skin and filaments: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/the-filamented-psittacosaurus/

Some photos of the rather more common Psittacosaurus in museums, innumerable skeletons, many of which are composites of several individuals: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/the-rise-and-rise-of-psittacosaurus/

www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

@iszi_lawrence

@dave_hone

facebook.com/terrriblelizardspodcast

Riparovenator and Ceratosuchops – Chris Barker and Darren Naish

Just like the start of series 3, we are kicking off the new series with a special on a new research paper (of which Dave is one of the authors) which is out today! In it, two new, large, predatory dinosaurs from the UK are named and both are part of the spinosaur group! Obviously it's all very exciting, but to avoid things being too Dave-centric we have invited on two other palaeontologists from the paper, Chris Barker and Darren Naish. As a perfect example of the research process and scholarly work they present lots of ideas and information for Iszi to pick through while also cutting each other off and disagreeing over things too. But still, it should be a great insight into these new animals and the research that has been done on them.

Links:

Here's the new paper itself: www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-97870-8

A link to Dave's blog post discussing the new paper: https://wordpress.com/post/archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/8762

A link to Darren's blog on the paper: http://tetzoo.com/blog/2021/9/27/two-new-spinosaurid-dinosaurs-from-the-english-cretaceous?fbclid=IwAR3wnW2BPbDu22aH4r0qXPt77nZtZEeBJoTI1i940aTdOcKRLC5jlG574h8

A link to Andrea Caursquo's blog (another author on the paper) about it: https://theropoda.blogspot.com/2021/09/lorigine-degli-spinosauridi-e-lascesa.html

www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

@iszi_lawrence

@dave_hone

facebook.com/terrriblelizardspodcast

Series 5 trailer with Dave Hone, Iszi Lawrence, Jay Foreman, Darren Naish, Suzy Buttress, I know dino, Bec Hill and Spanners! Series 5 starts on 29th September 2021.

Links:

www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

@iszi_lawrence

@dave_hone

facebook.com/terrriblelizardspodcast

An interview about Marine Reptiles with Keirsten Formso @formophology. To get more free bonus content FIRST become a Terrible Lizards Patron on patreon.com/terriblelizards

In the third series of Terrible Lizards we finally edged away from dinosaurs to cover pterosaurs, but in the Mesozoic, there were far more reptiles in the sea than in the air so we really need to do them too. Happily to this end we can welcome Kiersten Formoso from the University of Southern California who is working on her PhD about the transition back to the water by various reptiles from the time of the dinosaurs. Over the course of this bonus episode we look at the rise and fall of various different groups that took to the water and the evolutionary changes that occurred to them as they adapted to a watery way of life. So sit back and enjoy an hour of live bearing giant dolphin-mimics and all kinds of others. Links: Kiersten's webpage with links to all her projects: https://www.formorphology.com

Photos taken at the Carnegie Museum of some of the groups discussed in the pod: https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/western-interior-seaway/

It is the final episode this series and as usual we are answering some of your dinosaur questions (as many as we could cram into an hour). A massive thank you to all our patrons on patreon - your support means everything to us. We are planning a series 5! We will be back in the Autumn. There will be a few mid season episodes dropped here and even more content on our patreon. Got to patreon.com/terriblelizards

Questions in were asked by: Chris (from Germany), Gildas (age 8), Edward (age 37), João Barbosa, Stephen Gatehouse, Gareth, Sarah Graham, and Melissa!

We do often do live Q&As which you can find on iszitube

Dave Hone tells Iszi Lawrence about the early days of paleontology and the very first dinosaur discoveries in the UK. We cover the perpetually unlucky Gideon Mantell and the not especially nice Richard Owen (and Mary Anning pops up though she didn't really do dinosaurs). Dr Kiki Sandford then joins us and asks what clues there are in fossils to tell us how dinosaurs behave... and things get silly.

A link to an old blogpost of Dave's including photos of the original Megalosaurus jaw at Oxford

https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/more-of-megalosaurus/

Another old blogpost but with photos of the famous Crystal Palace dinosaurs.

https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/crystal-palace-dinosaurs/

Following on from our last adventure into the realm of the very biggest dinosaurs, we now have a look at the other side of this issue which is that big dinosaurs started off very small. How do you get from a 5 kg hatchling to a 50 ton monster and what does that mean for how they lived and how palaeontologists identify adults and juveniles? Are there hundreds of 'new' dinosaur species that are just misidentified babies and can we tell? Then we are joined by out guest, comedian Alasdair Beckett-King who wants to ask perhaps the most pertinent question we've ever had, namely: What would be the best dinosaur to ride?

Links:

A couple of photos showing different dinosaur egg shapes from the near spherical to the greatly elongated https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/dinosaur-egg-musings/

A blogpost by Dave about his paper on telling adults from baby dinosaurs https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/what-is-an-adult-dinosaur/

A blogpost by Dr Matt Wedel on the same issue but with a particular focus on the complications of growth in giant sauropods https://svpow.com/2016/02/18/dinosaur-life-histories-are-plicomcated/

Alasdair Becket King hosts Loremen Podcast and makes exceptionally funny youtube videos:

http://www.abeckettking.com/