This week we tackle a small dinosaur that should be much better known, a classic contemporary of Velociraptor and the other half of the fighting dinosaurs, Protoceratops. While nothing like as famous as its (much) larger cousin Triceratops, Protoceratops is an interesting and important dinosaur. Thanks to a multitude of fossils, including animals of all different ages, we have a fantastic set of data to work from and as a result a lot of research has been done on this fascinating frilled dinosaur. This week our guest is singer Faith Child who wants to know just how close (or indeed far) humans are to dinosaurs evolutionarily. Things rapidly descend into developmental biology (not Dave’s forte) but happily we have an excerpt from Faith’s new track “Near Era, feat. Faith Child and KB and Ty Brasel” to play us out.

Links:

A link to Dave’s paper on Protoceratops forming groups including the specimen of four juveniles https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0113306

Photos of a wonderful Protoceratops on display in the Carnegie Museum https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/protoceratops-2/

A link to Dave’s paper on social and sexual signalling in Protoceratops https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2016/1369-sexual-selection-in-ceratopsia

A link to Faith Child's Official Site https://www.faithchildmusic.com/