In our 151st episode, we got to chat with Keegan Kuhn, owner of TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and exhibits. You can see some amazing examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs.

Episode 151 is also about Deltadromeus, a theropod whose name means “delta runner.”

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In this episode, we discuss:

News:

The dinosaur of the day: Deltadromeus

Carnivorous theropod that lived in the Cretaceous in what is now Northern Africa

Name means “delta runner”

Type species is Deltadromeus agilis

Had long, slender hindlimbs for its size (probably a fast runner)

Named in 1996 by Paul Sereno

Gabrielle Lyon found Deltadromeus in 1995 while excavating Cretaceous sediments

Paul Sereno and Gabrielle Lyon got married in 1996

May be a junior synonym to Bahariasaurus

Bahariasaurus was named in 1934, but the type specimen was destroyed in WWII, so it’s not possible to compare with Deltadromeus

Ernst Stromer considered a few more specimens to be the same as Bahariasaurus, but then Paul Sereno referred them to Deltadromeus in 1996. However, this has been questioned because they came from different localities in the Bahariya Formation and have some differences from the Deltadromeus

Holotype was fairly complete, and was about 26 ft (8 m) long

No skulls have been found for Deltadromeus or Bahariasaurus

Some teeth have been labeled as Deltadromeus but no skull has been found so it’s not clear if they are actually Deltadromeus

May have weighed up to 2 metric tons

Other theropods found in the same formation as Deltadromeus include Carcharodontosaurus, Spinosaurus, and Bahariasaurus

Being fast may have helped it stay out of the way of these other large carnivores

Thought to be a ceratosaurian, but an analysis of Aoniraptor (which may be synonymous with Gualicho) has found that Deltadromeus and Bahariasaurus may be from a poorly known clade of megaraptoran tyrannosauroids different from Megaraptoridae

Fun Fact:

Coprolite from herbivores is harder to find than coprolite from carnivores

According to Paul Barrett, that’s because the there’s calcium in carnivore poop. Specifically, calcium from bones that they ate.

On the other hand, herbivore poop is basically the beginning of a compost pile (partially decomposed plants).

This could explain why the herbivore coprolite with crustacean remains was preserved so well.