Episode 559: Sauropod Shindig. Five new sauropods from all across the world and the sauropod family tree. Plus new embryos and hatchlings, sauropod speed estimates, and much much more.

News:

• Sauropod experts wrote an introduction to Diplodocoidea source
• There’s a new titanosaur sauropod, Utetitan zellaguymondeweyae source
• A new Alamosaurus fossil was found source
• There’s a new dicraeosaurid sauropod, Athenar bermani source
• There’s a new titanosaur sauropod, Yeneen houssayi source
• There’s a new eusauropod sauropod, Jinchuanloong niedu source
• There’s a new species of the sauropod Mamenchisaurus, Mamenchisaurus sanjiangensis source
• Some sauropods chose to lay eggs surrounded by fast moving waters, possibly to protect them from predators source
• New Massospondylus embryos and hatchling show how they started on all fours before growing up and walking on two legs source
• Large sauropods may have had max speeds of 6 mph (10 km/h) source
• A nearly complete Plateosaurus tail shows this sauropodomorph could do damage with its tail source

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This episode is brought to you by the Colorado Northwestern Community College. Join them for two weeks digging up dinosaur bones in the field, preparing fossils in their lab, or in their new field geology program. For details go to CNCC.edu/paleo26

The dinosaur of the day: Cetiosauriscus

• Not to be confused with the sauropod Cetiosaurus (for a while was considered to be Cetiosaurus)
• Genus name means “Cetiosaurus-like”
• Cetiosaurus means “whale lizard”
• Sauropod that lived in the Middle Jurassic in what is now England (Oxford Clay Formation)
• Walked on all fours, had a small head, and long neck
• Had a somewhat long tail
• Hindlimb is longer than the forelimb, but not by too much
• Feet similar to Diplodocus. First toes are large with claws, and the outer toes are small and don’t have claws
• Estimated to be about 49 ft (15 m) long and weigh between 4.4 and 11 short tons (depending on how its classified)
• In the past considered to be a diplodocoid, based on its vertebrae being long. Later thought to be a mamenchisaurid. Now considered to be a eusauropod (a more general group)
• First fossil found by clay workers
• Ended up at the British Museum of Natural History (now Natural History Museum in London)
• Fossils include the forelimb (but no hand), most of the hindlimb, a shoulder blade, parts of the hips, and the vertebral column (parts of the back and tail)
• In 2009 a leg bone was found at Cotswold Water Park, considered to also belong to Cetiosauriscus, according to a news article
• Took 6 months of sifting through muddy clay to get the bone pieces, which is 4.6 ft (1.4m) long
• Site where the leg bone was found was being refurbished and the spot where the bone was found flooded
• Originally considered to be Ornithopsis by Hulke in 1887
• Hulke described a partial sauropod skeleton found in England in 1887, as an Ornithopsis specimen (as a new species, Ornithopsis leedsii)
• Then in 1871 Phillips named Cetiosaurus oxoniensis based on an incomplete skeleton
• In 1889 Seeley said Ornithopsis leedsii and Cetiosaurus oxonensis were the same, so the specimen Hulke described in 1887 was considered to be Cetiosaurus
• In 1905 Woodward described another Cetiosaurus skeleton
• In 1927, von Huene found that the first specimen was most likely in between Cetiosaurus and another sauropod, Haplocanthosaurus
• Huene said that specimen was different enough to be its own genus. So he named the 1905 skeleton Cetiosauriscus (implied with the name Cetiosauriscus that it was similar to Cetiosaurus)
• He referred that skeleton and a hip bone from another individual to Cetiosauriscus, and the type species at the time was Cetiosauriscus leedsi
• In 1980, A.J. Charig found Cetiosauriscus leedsii to be dubious (hip bone was too incomplete to even compare to the hip bone from the other skeleton), which meant there was no more type species, so he proposed a new species based on the skeleton, Cetiosauriscus stewarti
• Charig later petitioned the ICZN to make Cetiosauriscus stewarti the type species (includes the specimen Huene named Cetiosauriscus for), which they accepted
• Type and only species is Cetiosauriscus stewarti
• Species name stewarti in honor of Sir Ronald Stewart, chairman of the London Brick Company which owned the clay pit where the fossils were found
• There were other species in the past: C. medius, C. brevis, C. brachyurus, and C. longus, to name a few, but none of them were considered unique enough (truly diagnostic), so they’re no longer considered to be species of Cetiosauriscus
• Another species (originally Ornithopsis greppini, then later Cetiosauriscus greppini) was eventually named as a new sauropod, Amanzia, in 2020
• Other dinosaurs that lived around the same time and place include the ankylosaur Sarcolestes, stegosaurs like Lexovisaurus and Loricatosaurus, and the ornithopod Callovosaurus
• Other animals that lived around the same time and place include ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs, and crocodylians

Fun Fact:

Some smaller sauropods could probably rear up for long periods of time.

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