Baby Bio Dinosaur Study Guide Look at pictures from the book Paleontologist someone who studies any aspect of ancient organisms Paleobiology the study of ancient life what they were like anatomically physiologically behaviorally and ecologically Where the first written dinosaur accounts were found China they thought they were dragons Scrotum Humanum first name of dino bone thought was scrotum of dino but was thigh bone first English encounter Mosasaurus Cuvier said it was extinct first time people realized things go extinct Megalosaurus big lizard first valid dino name no one cared because at the time people believed exaggerated tales of 30 foot crocodiles in Africa and Australia so they just thought it was a croc Iguanodon iguana tooth thought it was a big iguana iguana tooth look at picture of iguanodon tooth below was first described herbivorous dinosaur Sir Richard Owen named dinosaurian meaning fearfully great reptiles 1842 reptiles meaning scaly skinned terrestrialized living on land animals that lay hard shelled eggs Related to crocodiles pterosaurs flying reptiles and dinosauromorphs extinct dinosaur like reptiles Pterosaurs had upright posture and so are closer relatives to dinos than crocs Archosaurians crocodiles pterosaurs dinosaurs etc have following characteristics teeth in sockets that are replaced throughout life hinge like ankles and erect posture due to an inturned ball on the femur thigh bone Dinosaurs Have three or more sacral vertebrae fused backbones in the hip region hands with three fingers and perforate acetabulae the hole where the thighbone attached goea all the way through the hip are all what make dinos dinos Two types of dinos ornithischians with hips shaped like birds saursichians with hips shaped like lizards The Fossil Feud 1870 s 1890 s Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope Cope showed Marsh a place in New Jersey where he had people digging up bones Marsh went back and began paying them more for the fossils taking them from Cope fuel was added to the fire when Marsh pointed out that Cope had put the head of a Plesiosaur a long necked sea monster on its tail After WWII most dino hunting slowed down Deinonychus terrible claw dinosaur renaissance changed our perception of dinos because it was so bird like and agile like the raptor from Jurassic Park Robert Bakker stole the idea and ran with it saying that all dinosaurs were physiologically more like modern birds than had been thought before interest in dino research soared funding for research soared and hundreds of jobs were created Dinos existed from 238 million years until 65 5 million years ago Nobel Laureate Walter Alvarez in 1980 proposed that a meteorite killed off the dinosaurs A new dinosaur is named every week Triassic Period occurred 251 200 million years ago the oldest dinosaurs show up midway through this period Jurassic Period occurred 200 146 million years ago this was the time of the very largest dinosaurs Cretaceous Period occurred 146 65 54 million years ago the final stage for dinosaurs and the time when T rex ruled the dinosaurs went extinct 65 54 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period Half life the amount of time it takes for half of the original material to break down know the rate of decay uranium 235 degrades into lead 207 Climate in the age of dinos World was warmer arid in equatorial regions much like florida in middle latitudes closer to the poles it was cool wet and rainy Plate tectonics in the Triassic period all were adjoined into one super continent known as Pangea throughout the age of dinosaurs the continents moved apart driven by volcanic seafloor spreading in the oceans Climate There were no ice caps at the poles there was more free water in the oceans than there is today and a greater portion of the continents were covered by water Crocs lived with dinos there earliest ones were not like those today they were small agile terrestrial predators 32 foot deinosuchus was a super croc bite force of 18 000 lbs Highest bite force at fsu was 3 700 lbs Plesiosaur loch ness monster bodies like sea turtles but necks were long and snake like Mammals appear at the same time as dinos Fossils are any remains or evidence of ancient life Trace fossils not actual remains of animal but what they were doing bite marks tracks eggs skin impressions stomach stones and even fossilized feces trace fossils are primary means by which paleontologists learn about dinosaur biology Tracks revealed tails didn t drag Sedimentary rocks where we find dinos rocks formed from sediments e g sandstones and shales Igneous rocks from volcanoes such as ash tuffs rarely find remains of animals here Badlands places where plants don t grow is where bones are exposed and people find them Find dinos in new jersey Alabama and GEORGIA mainly in Georgia along the Chattahoochee First ones appear and were extremely small then got big all dinosaurs were not giants and the earliest forms were small Ornithischians bird shaped hip bones and beaks to crop plants includes the herbivorous armored dinosaurs Thyreophora shield bearers or armored dinos had osteoderms armor on the back like an alligator Advanced thyreophorans included two major groups the ankylosaurs the dinosaur tanks and the stegosaurs the plated lizards Stegosaurs plates and spikes along or beside the backbone are what distinguish this dinosaur Stegosaurus had enormous plates and two sets of spikes on its tail the most famous stegosaur Theories of plates of stegosaurs flapped to scare away predators arranged for camouflage absorb bites from predators defensive barrier used as thermal radiators used to dissipate heat in the wind designed for species display whether sexual or agonistic Endocasts sediments that filled the brain cavities of dinos or from filling hollowed skulls with latex Paleontology has a history founded solely in geology not biology animal behavior or anatomy why they have all their crazy theories Cerapodan gap between front and back teeth like a horse Heterodontosaurs different sized teeth lizards had different shaped teeth like a mammal We do not know the sex of any dinosaurs Sexual dimophism differences in size and shape between sexes No credible evidence any dinosaur was arboreal living in trees or the seas they were mainly terrestrial animals Advanced Ornithopods key features criss crossed back and tail tendons that provided rigidity to the torso and allowed the balancing of the tail like a teeter totter forward
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