Episode 186 is all about Othnielia, a small ornithischian that appears in the Jurassic Park book as a warning sign.

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

The dinosaur of the day: Othnielia

Referred to as “Othys” in the first Jurassic Park book, and found in trees (no evidence it actually spent time in trees) The Othys are a warning sign in the book that Jurassic Park is failing, because they are able to leap over the electrified fences, and are spotted by Tim Murphy in a Stegosaurus pen when Tim is on a tour of the park. They are an example of how the security measures to keep dinosaurs in their pens don’t really work, since the Jurassic Park team doesn’t have the knowledge or technology to restrict them Ornithischian that lived in the Jurassic in what is now the U.S. (Morrison Formation) Type species is Othnielia rex Othniel Charles Marsh originally described the bones in 1877, but called it Nanosaurus rex Named in 1977 by Peter Galton, who named it after Marsh Marsh found a femur, and fossils were assigned to Othnielia later, though when Galton revised Othnielia he found it only included the original femur and a few bits, and he reassigned two partial skeletons to Othnielosaurus (another ornithischian). Then later Galton thought the femur was undiagnostic and Othnielia was dubious, and because he thought it was a nomen dubium he could not refer other specimens that were previously assigned to Othnielia to Othnielia (including a dentary and a nearly complete specimen in the Aathal Dinosaur Museum, in Switzerland, nicknamed Barbara) In 2001, Kathleen Brill and Kenneth Carpenter found a baby ornithopod in the Morrison Formation, possibly Othnielia, that’s about 1/3 the size of the known adult Small herbivore, about 4.9-6.6 ft (1.5-2 m) long, and weighed about 22 lb (10 kg) Bipedal and agile, with small arms and long legs Probably lived in a forest Other dinosaurs that lived in the same time and place include sauropods such as Brachiosaurus, Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, Camarasaurus, theropods such as Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Ornitholestes, Stegosaurus, and ornithopods such as Camptosaurus and Dryosaurus



Fun Fact:

Stegosaurus may have had alternating plates on its back, but in Jurassic World Stegosaurus is depicted as having parallel plates.

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