Friday, November 24, 2023

On the functioning of Thescelosaurus

While it may seem that every paper on dinosaur paleobiology is about Tyrannosaurus rex, or at least some kind of theropod, this is not true; occasionally one slips out on a sauropodomorph or ornithischian. In the past few weeks, in fact, two have come out on aspects of our old favorite Thescelosaurus. Both feature North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (NCSM) 15728, also known as "Willo" (the one formerly thought to have a fossil heart). The earlier of the two, Senter and Mackey (2023), considers what Thescelosaurus could do with its arms, and the more recent, Button and Zanno (2023), sheds light on what may have been going on inside of its sharply pointed skull.

Monday, November 6, 2023

Your Friends The Titanosaurs: Inawentu oslatus

Our latest guest in the series is Inawentu oslatus from the middle Late Cretaceous of Argentina. I. oslatus is more than your average new titanosaur; it is one of the two major unnamed titanosaurs discussed a couple of years back, MAU-Pv-LI-595. This is the more recently discovered of the two skull-bearing titanosaurs from Rincón de los Sauces (the other is MAU-Pv-AC-01).