In our 137th episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Victoria Arbour, who, with David Evans, described and named the new ankylosaur Zuul crurivastator. You can learn more about Victoria’s work by following her on Twitter, @VictoriaArbour.

Episode 137 is also about Olorotitan, the “Russian swan” of hadrosaurs.

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In this episode, we discuss:

In dinosaur news:

The dinosaur of the day: Olorotitan

Lambeosaurine hadrosaur that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Far Eastern Russia (found in the Tsagayan Formation)

Known as the “Russian swan” of hadrosaurs, and it has a long neck and a battle axe shaped crest

Name means “gigantic swan”

Only one species: Olorotitan arharensis

The species name arharensis refers to where the fossils were found, in Arhara County

Described in 2003 by Pascal Godefroit, Yuri Bolotsky, and Vladimir Alifanov

Holotype consists of a nearly complete skeleton

Most complete lameosaurine found outside of western North America, and one of the most complete dinosaurs found in Russia

Missing hands and feet, possibly because scavengers ate them before Olorotitan was buried

At the end of the Mesozoic, lambeosaurines were numerous and diverse in Asia (but not in North America)

This suggests that the climates in Asian and North America were different at the time

Had a long neck (18 vertebrae). The longest hadrosaur neck found before it had 15 vertebrae

Its battle axe or hatchet shaped crest points backward, and is different from other hadrosaurs with crests

Crest may have been used for attracting mates, or to let others know they were the same species

Crest had a hollow structure, which may have been able to make low frequency calls (crest expands from the nasal bones). If this is true, it would be similar to what scientists think Parasaurolophus could do. However, parts of the crest found were fragmentary or crushed, so it’s unclear what route the nasal passage took (would need to find another skull to know for sure)

Had a stiff tail, though it’s unclear if all Olorotitan had stiff tails or if this one had a pathology (need more specimens to know for sure)

Large, may have grown up to 26 ft (8 m) long

Bipedal and quadrupedal

Herbivore that could grind its food with its hundreds of teeth that were continuously replaced

Found to be most closely related to Corythosaurus and Hypacrosaurus

Other animals that lived in the same time and place were the lambeosaurines Charonosaurus and Amurosaurus, the hadrosaurine Kerberosaurus, theropods, nodosaurids, turtles, crocodilians

Fun fact:

“The Great Dying” wiped out most vertebrates on earth during the Permian-Triassic boundary ~252MYA. Afterwards, Lystrosaurus accounted for about 90% of terrestrial vertebrates in the early Triassic. Lystrosaurus is a therapsid which just like all modern mammals although it looks superficially like a dinosaur. It wasn’t until the Triassic-Jurassic extinction that dinosaurs became the dominant terrestrial group.

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Interview:

Transcript coming soon…