Dinosaurs Without Bones (62 page)

Read Dinosaurs Without Bones Online

Authors: Anthony J. Martin

p. 210
“These large, extinct flightless birds lived on both the north and south islands of New Zealand up until less than a thousand years ago… .” Holdaway, R.N., and Jacomb, C. 2000. Rapid extinction of the moas (Aves: Dinornithiformes): model, test, and implications.
Science
, 287: 2250-2254.

p. 211
“In 2000, scientists Christopher Whittle and Laura Onorato used a scanning electron microscope (SEM) to peer more intensely at gastroliths in general.” Whittle, C.H., and Onorato, L. 2000. On the origins of gastroliths: determining the weathering environment of rounded and polished stones by scanning electron-microscope examination.
In
Lucas, S.G. and Heckert, A.B. (eds.),
Dinosaurs of New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin
, 17: 69-73.

p. 212
“First of all, despite previous attempts to diminish these important trace fossils via the almost-clever pun ‘gastromyths’… .” Lucas, S.G. 2000. The gastromyths of “
Seismosaurus
,” a Late Jurassic dinosaur from New Mexico.
In
Lucas, S.G. and Heckert, A.B. (editors),
Dinosaurs of New Mexico. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin
, 17: 61-67.

p. 212
“The earliest description of possible gastroliths in a dinosaur was in 1838, when French paleontologist Jacques Amand Eudes-Deslongchamps noted about ten pebbles… .” Eudes-Deslongchamps, A. 1838. MeÅLmoire sur le
Poekilopleuron bucklandi
, grande saurien fossile, intermeÅLdiare entre les crocodiles et les leÅLzards, deÅLcouvert dans les carrie`res de la Maladrerie, pre`s Caen, au mois de juillet 1835.
Mémoires de la Société Linnéenne Normandie
, 6: 1-114.

p. 212
“Much later, in the late 19th century and leading up to 1900, paleontologists began spotting gastroliths in dinosaurs and marine-reptile contemporaries of dinosaurs… .” (1) Brown, B. 1904. Stomach stones and the food of plesiosaurs.
Science
, 20: 184-185. (2) Cannon, G.L. 1906. Sauropodan gastroliths.
Science
, 24: 116.

p. 212
“Large stones were also associated with sauropod skeletons excavated in the 1870s… .” Brown, B. 1907. Gastroliths.
Science
, 25: 392.

p. 213
“Sometime around 1900, Brown noticed a collection of rounded cobbles inside a hadrosaur skeleton that he identified as ‘
Claosaurus
.’” Brown (1907).

p. 213
“In 1907, Brown followed up this study with another paper on dinosaur gastroliths, which he very simply titled ‘Gastroliths.’” Brown (1907).

p. 213
“For one, the ‘gastroliths’ in this particular dinosaur were probably river stones that washed into the body cavity of the hadrosaur soon after it died.” Currie, P.J. 1997. Gastroliths.
In
Currie, P.J., and Padian, K. (editors),
Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs
. Academic Press, New York: 270.

p. 213
“Second, the hadrosaur was misidentified and instead was a species of
Edmontosaurus… .
” Horner, J.R., Weishampel, D.B., and Forster, C.A. 2004. Hadrosauridae. Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and OsmoÅLlska, H. (editors),
The Dinosauria
(2nd Edition). University of California Press, Berkeley, California: 438-463.

p. 213
“Brown was also beaten to press on dinosaur gastroliths by a not-asfamous paleontologist, G.L. Cannon… .” Cannon (1906).

p. 213
“Other paleontologists, such as Brown’s proteÅLgeÅL Roland T. Bird, later promoted this supposed association between sauropods and gastroliths.” Bird (1985).

p. 214
“Among the theropods documented thus far with gastroliths are: the Early Jurassic
Megapnosaurus
(previously known as
Syntarsus
)… .” Most of these gastrolith-bearing theropods are listed under “Gastroliths” in the index of Weishampel
et al.
’s (2004)
The Dinosauria
.

p. 214
“These are small, effete theropods, some of which, such as
Nqwebasaurus
, had nubby teeth, and
Sinornithomimus
, which completely lacked teeth.” (1) de Klerk, W.J., Forster, C.A., Sampson, S.D., Chinsamy, A., and Ross, C.F. 2000. A new coelurosaurian dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of South Africa.
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
, 2: 324-332. (2) Kobayashi, Y., and Lü, J.−C. 2003. A new ornithomimid dinosaur with gregarious habits from the Late Cretaceous of China.
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
, 48: 235-259.

p. 215
“Well,
Poekilopleuron
was not only a theropod, but also a big one… .” Allain, R., and Chure, D.J. 2002.
Poekilopleuron bucklandii
, the theropod dinosaur from the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian) of Normandy.
Palaeontology
, 45: 1107-1121.

p. 215
“Unfortunately, we can’t study the original bones of
Poekilopleuron
, as these were lost in bombing raids during World War II.” Dieter-Sues, H. 2012. European dinosaur hunters of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
In
Brett-Surman, M.K., Holtz, T.R., Jr., and Farlow, J.O. (editors),
The Complete Dinosaur
(2nd Edition). Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana: 45-59.

p. 215
“Of the small theropods found with undoubted gastroliths in their abdominal cavities, some of these—such as
Caudipteryx
,
Sinocalliopteryx
, and
Sinosauropteryx—
also have feathers.” Wings (2007).

p. 216
“The gastrolith connection … was bolstered by the discovery of gastroliths in the Early Cretaceous bird
Yanornis martini
of China.” Zhou, Z., Clarke, J.A., Zhang, F., and Wings, O. 2004. Gastroliths in
Yanornis
: an indication of the earliest radical diet−switching and gizzard plasticity in the lineage leading to living birds?
Naturwissenschaften,
91: 571-574.

p. 216
“In 1890, nearly a hundred years before the theropod–bird
connection was firmly established, O. C. Marsh named one dinosaur
Ornithomimus velox
… .” Marsh, O.C. 1890. Description of new dinosaurian reptiles.
The American Journal of Science,
39: 81-86.

p. 216
“Ornithomimids with gastroliths include the Early Cretaceous
Sinornithomimus
, the Late Cretaceous
Shenzhousaurus
… .” (1) Kobayashi, Y., Lü, J.−C., Dong, Z.−M., Barsbold, R., Azuma, Y., and Tomida, Y. 1999. Herbivorous diet in an ornithomimid dinosaur.
Nature
, 402
:
480-481. (2) Ji, Q., Norrell, M., Makovicky, P. J., Gao, K., Ji, S., and Yuan, C. 2003. An early ostrich dinosaur and implications for ornithomimosaur phylogeny.
American Museum Novitates
, 3420: 1-19. (3) Barrett, P.M. 2005. The diet of ostrich dinosaurs (Theropoda: Ornithomimosauria).
Palaeontology
, 48: 347-358.

p. 216
“The most recent, and one of the most exciting examples of gastroliths in a ornithomimid, was … in a skeleton of the Late Cretaceous
Deinocheirus mirificus
of Mongolia.” This dinosaur, known previously only through only a pair of disembodied and gigantic arms, was revealed by Yuong-Nam Lee and colleagues as a massive, sail-backed herbivore, and thus one of the most unusual of all theropods. Lee presented on these finds at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting in Los Angeles, California in late October, 2013: Lee, Y.-N., Barsbold, R., Currie, P., Kobayashi, Y., and Lee, H.-J. 2013. New specimens of
Deinocheirus mirificus
from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia.
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
, Program and Abstracts, 2013: 161.

p. 217
“For instance, in modern ostriches and other birds that employ gastroliths to help with their food, these rocks make up about 1% of their total body mass.” (1) Wings (2007). (2) Wings and Sander (2007).

p. 217
“However, for sauropods, the proportion between gastroliths and estimated body mass was about 10% that of birds.” Wings and Sander (2007).

p. 217
“This huge disparity between extant and extinct gastrolith-using animals led paleontologists to conclude that these stones surely were not used for the same purposes… .” Wings and Sander (2007).

p. 218
“For example, one specimen of the Late Jurassic sauropod
Diplodocus hallorum
(formerly named “
Seismosaurus hallorum”
) of northern New Mexico had more than 200 gastroliths… .” Gillette, D. 1991.
Seismosaurus halli
, gen. et sp. nov., a new sauropod dinosaur from the Morrison Formation (Upper Jurassic/Lower Cretaceous) of New Mexico, USA.
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
, 11: 417-433.

p. 218
“An assemblage of 115 gastroliths … was also packed into a small area within a skeleton of the Early Cretaceous sauropod
Cedarosaurus
… .” Sanders, F., Manley, K., and Carpenter, K. 2001.
Gastroliths from the Lower Cretaceous sauropod
Cedarosaurus weiskopfae
.
In
Tanke, D.H., and Carpenter, K. (editors),
Mesozoic Vertebrate Life
. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana: 166-180.

p. 218
“Other sauropods with gastroliths directly associated with their bones include:
Apatosaurus
,
Barosaurus
, and
Camarasaurus
… .” Wings and Sander (2007).

p. 218
“In one instance, 14 gastroliths were directly associated with the remains of a juvenile
Camarasaurus
scavenged by
Allosaurus
, the latter indicated by tracks, toothmarks, and dislodged teeth.” Jennings and Hasiotis (2006).

p. 218
“Several specimens of a Late Triassic prosauropod from South Africa,
Massospondylus …
had gastroliths too.” Raath, M. 1974. Fossil vertebrate studies in Rhodesia: further evidence of gastroliths in prosauropod dinosaurs.
Arnoldia
, 7: 1-7.

p. 218
“Moreover, the skeleton of another prosauropod, the Early Jurassic
Ammosaurus
of North America, had gastroliths.” Whittle and Everhart (2000).

p. 218
“In short, although gastroliths are relatively rare, having been found in less than 4% of all sauropod skeletons… .” Wings and Sander (2007).

p. 219
“In contrast, only a few ornithischians have gastroliths. These include the … ankylosaur
Panoplosaurus
… ceratopsian
Psittacosaurus

Gasparinisaura
of Argentina… .” (1) Carpenter, K. 1997. Ankylosaurs.
In
Farlow, J.O., and Brett-Surman, M.K. (editors).
The Complete Dinosaur
(1st edition). Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana: 307-316. (2) Hailu, Y., and Dodson, P. 2004. Basal ceratopsia.
In
Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P., and OsmoÅLlska, H. (editors). 2004.
The Dinosauria
(2nd Edition). University of California Press, Berkeley, California: 478-493.(3) Cerda, I.A. 2008. Gastroliths in an ornithopod dinosaur.
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
, 53: 351-355.

p. 220
“But in the past few years, behavioral scientists are gaining a greater appreciation for how some species of birds, such as crows and ravens… .” This is covered in much detail in Chapter 10. Or maybe you already knew that, seeing that these endnotes are, appropriately enough, at the end of the book. p. 221 “Along those lines, in an article published by Robert Weems, Michelle Culp, and Oliver Wings in 2007… .” Weems, R.E., Culp, M.J., and Wings, O. 2007. Evidence for prosauropod dinosaur gastroliths in the Bull Run Formation (Late Triassic, Norian) of Virginia.
Ichnos
, 14: 271-295.

p. 221
“Despite more than 200 years of paleontological study, Mesozoic rocks of the eastern U.S. are embarrassingly shy about revealing dinosaur bones… .” Weishampel, D.B., and Young, L. 1998.
Dinosaurs of the East Coast
. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland: 296 p.

p. 222
“For example, only a few theropod tracks have been found thus far in Late Triassic rocks of northeastern Virginia… .” Weems, R.E. 1987. A Late Triassic footprint fauna from the Culpeper Basin Northern Virginia (U.S.A.).
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
, 77: 1-79.

p. 222
“Weems and his colleagues built their case about the Bull Run gastroliths by noting a number of traits that matched those of known dinosaur gastroliths… .” Weems
et al.
(2007).

p. 223
“However, sauropods were rare in the Late Triassic and did not become more widespread until the Middle Jurassic… .” Wilson, J.A., and Curry-Rogers, K. 2012. Sauropods.
In
Brett-Surman, M.K., Holtz, T.R., Jr., and Farlow, J.O. (editors),
The Complete Dinosaur
(2nd Edition). Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana: 445-481.

p. 223
“Unfortunately, the body fossil record for Late Triassic prosauropods in North America is quite scanty… .” Yates, A. 2012. Basal Sauropodomorpha: the “Prosauropoda.”
In
Brett-Surman, M.K., Holtz, T.R., Jr., and Farlow, J.O. (editors),
The Complete Dinosaur
(2nd Edition). Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana: 425-443.

p. 224
“The best match came from the Manassas Sandstone, which has conglomerates; these are sandstones that also have chunky bits, such as pebbles, gravel, and cobbles.” Weems
et al.
(2007).

p. 224
“Assuming that the gastroliths are gravestones, marking the final resting places of prosauropods, then these rocks moved a minimum of about 20 km (12 mi) under dinosaur control, and probably much further.” Weems
et al.
(2007).

p. 222
“For example, only a few theropod tracks have been found thus far in Late Triassic rocks of northeastern Virginia… .” Weems, R.E. 1987. A Late Triassic footprint fauna from the Culpeper Basin Northern Virginia (U.S.A.).
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
, 77: 1-79.

p. 222
“Weems and his colleagues built their case about the Bull Run gastroliths by noting a number of traits that matched those of known dinosaur gastroliths… .” Weems
et al.
(2007).

p. 223
“However, sauropods were rare in the Late Triassic and did not become more widespread until the Middle Jurassic… .” Wilson, J.A., and Curry-Rogers, K. 2012. Sauropods.
In
Brett-Surman, M.K., Holtz, T.R., Jr., and Farlow, J.O. (editors),
The Complete Dinosaur
(2nd Edition). Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana: 445-481.

Other books

Passage by Overington, Caroline
Frantic by Katherine Howell
Plastic Polly by Jenny Lundquist
Urban Climber 2 by Hunter, S.V.
The Lover by Genell Dellin
INK: Fine Lines (Book 1) by Bella Roccaforte
Falling Idols by Brian Hodge