Thecodontosaurus
The Bristol dinosaur
by: tyrannoraptora
Thecodontosaurus antiquus, or ‘Theco’ to those that better know it, is commonly referred to as the Bristol dinosaur. As a palaeontologist (or at least a trainee one), Theco is special to me, being the first dinosaur I actually worked first-hand with, it was the first ‘real’ specimen I’d ever worked on. Anyway, less of the sentiment.
Relatively unknown to the public, an apex predator like Tyrannosaurus, or huge sauropod like Brachiosaurus (or is it, more on that later) it is not. At little over 2 metres in length, and only 30 centimetres in height, most remark that Thecodontosaurus would be ‘the perfect Triassic pet’.
Thecodontosaurus, meaning ‘socket-tooth lizard’, eludes to the fact that the roots of the teeth were not fused with the jaw bone (like todays lizards). Theco’s, are old in many ways, firstly in that they emerged in the mid-late Triassic, just as dinosaurs were on the verge of a diversity explosion, and global dispersion. Secondly, Theco was the 5th dinosaur ever discovered, placing its discovery shortly after such dinosaur giants (in a metaphorical, and scale sense) as Megalosaurus and Iguanodon.
Despite it’s small size, Thecodontosaurus may have lighted the evolutionary way to much, much bigger things to come. Theco is placed within the suborder Sauropodomorpha, and is thought to possibly be an ancestor to such giants as Diplodocus which would rule the plains of the Jurassic North Western USA, and eventually the earthshaking Argentinosaurus in the late Cretaceous.
Much of the initial Thecodontosaurus findings were made in Bristol, and to this day research is carried out on Triassic fossils and Thecodontosaurus remains. The Bristol Dinosaur Project works mainly on microfossils, to painstakingly piece together the entire ecosystem that Theco may have lived in. The Project is open to willing volunteers from both the scientific community, and the general public, it promises to reveal some much needed light on the mid-Triassic plains of Bristol.
for all those who want to read palaeo papers but without access to Vertebrate Palaeo/Nature etc.
:O must save this link
Alcian blue staining of a whiptail lizard.
Image(s) by Andrea Wills (2007 Woods Hole Embryology Course)
Jumping on my own bandwagon :D it’s just so cute :3
Brontosaurus (“Thunder Lizard”)
About:
Silly brontosaurus, you shouldn’t be on this site! You’re not even real!
Due to the “Bone Wars” between 19th century paleontologists, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, the brontosaurus was a mislabeled adult-version of an apatosaurus. On top of this, the skull attributed to the brontosaurus was, in fact, from another sauropod called the camarasaurus and mounted on the adult apatosaurus’ body. Originally, the brontosaurus was also thought to thrive in swamps, but no “brontosaurus” bones had ever been located near a body of water. Now, brontosaurus has become a synonym for apatosaurus.
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution remains a contentious subject, albeit not scientifically, more than 150 years after it was first postulated. To determine autonomous thinking ability amongst students, researchers at the American University in Beirut (AUB) related the ability to think independently to belief in evolution.
“We chose evolution because it is a controversial issue and that’s how you really find out if people are thinking for themselves,” says Saouma BouJaoude, head of the Science and Math Education Center at AUB.
Rejection of evolution is related to students’ religious affiliations, as evidenced by a study in Lebanon which revealed that 82% of Christian university students accepted evolution, while only 35% of Muslim students did so. Another study of 865 Lebanese students and 194 Egyptian students aged 16-17 found that religious practice influenced the level of belief in evolution. A third of the students believed evolution should be taught through religious education, while 48% indicated religiosity influences their thoughts on evolution.
BouJaoude explains that the results show it does not matter what religion one believes, but how religious they are: “you could be either Muslim or Christian and not be religious and it would be the same result.”
There were significant differences between religious Christian and Muslim students in Lebanon in their perceptions of the relationship between science and religion. Muslims are more influenced by their religious beliefs than Christians. Also, whereas more Muslim than Christian Lebanese students rejected evolutionary science, these differences were not as pronounced in Egypt.
