Dinosaurs Without Bones (64 page)

p. 248
“Cincinnati’s a great city with a lot going for it, but it has the wrong age rocks (Ordovician Period, 450 million years old) and wrong rocks… .” Davis, R.A., and Meyer, D.L. 2009.
A Sea Without Fish: Life in the Ordovician Sea of the Cincinnati Region
. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana: 368 p.

p. 249
“This means carnivorous dinosaur scat had a better chance of preserving than that coming from insectivores or herbivores… .” Chin, K. 2002. Analyses of coprolites produced by carnivorous vertebrates.
Paleontological Society Papers
, 8: 43-50.

p. 249
“Second, anaerobic bacteria in the feces could have assisted in preserving it, in which their metabolic processes caused chemical reactions that made more minerals precipitate, and do so rapidly (geologically speaking).” Hollocher, T.C., Chin, K., Hollocher, K.T., and Kruge, M.A. 2001. Bacterial residues in coprolite of herbivorous dinosaurs: role of bacteria in mineralization of feces.
Palaios
, 16: 547-565.

p. 249
“And third, rapid burial, such as from a nearby river flood, would have prevented fresh droppings from getting eaten, poked, prodded, sniffed, trampled, washed away, or otherwise damaged.” Thulborn, R.A., 1991. Morphology, preservation and palaeobiological significance of dinosaur coprolites.
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
, 83: 341-366.

p. 250
“Of dinosaur coprolites identified thus far, the best understood ones are attributed to the Late Cretaceous hadrosaur
Maiasaura
of Montana.” Chin, K. 2007. The paleobiological implications of herbivorous dinosaur coprolites from the Upper Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation of Montana: why eat wood?
Palaios
, 22: 554-566.

p. 250
“Other large coprolites are credited to Late Cretaceous tyrannosaurids, such as
Tyrannosaurus rex
; one of these is more than twice the length of a 12-inch sub sandwich.” (1) Chin, K., Tokaryk, T.T., Erickson, G.M., and Calk, L.C. 1998. A king-sized theropod coprolite.
Nature
, 393: 680-682. (2) Chin, K., Eberth, D.A., Schweitzer, M.H., Rando, T.A., Sloboda, W.J., and Horner, J.R. 2003. Remarkable preservation of undigested muscle tissue within a Late Cretaceous
Tyrannosaurus
coprolite from Alberta, Canada.
Palaios
, 18: 286-294.

p. 251
“For example, Early Cretaceous coprolites from Belgium have bone fragments in them.” Poinar, G., Jr., and Boucot, A.J. 2006. Evidence of intestinal parasites of dinosaurs.
Parasitology
, 133: 245-250.

p. 251
“This seemingly un-dinosaur-like behavior, which is extremely common in modern birds, was proposed for the bizarre theropod
Mononykus.
…” Senter (2005).

p. 251
“Some beetles roll balls of this nutritious stuff as take-out, which they push into burrows, lay eggs on them, and seal off the burrow.” Bertone, M., Green, J., Washburn, S., Poore, M., Sorenson, C., and Watson, D.W. 2005. Seasonal activity and species composition of dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae and Geotrupidae) inhabiting cattle pastures in North Carolina (USA).
Annals of the Entomological Society of America
, 98: 309-321.

p. 252
“As is often the case in ichnology, body parts had little to do with this discovery, which Chin and Gill documented in 1996.” Chin, K., and Gill, B.D. 1996. Dinosaurs, dung beetles, and conifers: participants in a Cretaceous food web.
Palaios
, 11: 280-285.

p. 252
“Some of the burrows were open, but in others the insects had actively filled them, having packed a mixture of sediment and dung behind them and leaving distinctly visual ‘plugs.’” Chin and Gill (1996).

p. 253
“Dung flies are relatively small and normally just lay their eggs on feces… .” Wiegmann, B., and Yeates, D.K. 2013.
The Evolutionary Biology of Flies
. Columbia University Press, New York: 512 p.

p. 253
“Dung beetles today employ three different strategies in handling feces: tunneling, dwelling, or rolling.” Martin (2013).

p. 254
“In a paper published in 2001, geochemist Thomas Hollocher, Karen Chin, and two other colleagues detected both abundant body fossils and chemical signatures of anaerobic bacteria in the coprolites.” Hollocher, T.C., Chin, K., Hollocher, K.T., and Kruge, M.A. 2001. Bacterial residues in coprolite of herbivorous dinosaurs: role of bacteria in mineralization of feces.
Palaios
, 16: 547-565.

p. 254
“Once these researchers examined thin sections of the coprolites under microscopes, they realized that the calcite in the coprolites was probably precipitated in two stages… .” Hollocher
et al.
(2001).

p. 254
“The fossilized wood lacked lignin, a connective tissue that holds wood fibers together.” Chin (2007).

p. 257
“We did not know it at the time, but Karen Chin had already finished studying these snails and surmised how they got into feces in the first place.” Chin, K., Hartman, J.H., and Roth, B. 2009. Opportunistic exploitation of dinosaur dung: fossil snails in coprolites from the Upper Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation of Montana.
Lethaia
, 42: 185-198.

p. 258
“Speaking of ecosystems, individual dinosaurs harbored their own diverse microflora and microfauna … called a
microbiome
.” Because people tend to be anthropocentric (go figure), most literature about microbiomes focuses on them in humans. But here’s one in which the
authors show how these microorganisms can influence non-human animal behavior: Ezenwa, V.O., Gerardo, N.M., Inouye, D.W., Medina, M., and Xavier, J.B. 2012. Animal behavior and the microbiome.
Science
, 338: 198-199.

p. 258
“Not all of this flora and fauna are necessarily harmful to the host, though; for example, some gut bacteria help to produce vitamins K and B12… .” Hill, M.J. 1997. Intestinal flora and endogenous vitamin synthesis.
European Journal of Cancer Prevention
, 6: S43-45.

p. 258
“Parasites fall into two broad categories:
endoparasites
(living inside), such as tapeworms, and
ectoparasites
(living outside), such as ticks.” Gunn, A., and Pitt, S.J. 2012.
Parasitology: An Integrated Approach
. John Wiley & Sons, New York: 442 p.

p. 259
“In 2006, two paleontologists, George Poinar and Art Boucot, documented three types of endoparasites in a dinosaur coprolite… .” Poinar and Boucot (2006).

p. 259
“The coprolites, first identified in 1903, ranged from 2 to 5 cm (1–2 in) wide and 11 to 13 cm (4.3–5 in) long, or human-sized.” Poinar and Boucot (2006).

p. 260
“The first known coprolite attributed to a tyrannosaurid came out of fluvial (river) deposits in the Frenchman Formation of Saskatchewan.” Chin
et al.
(1998).

p. 261
“Furthermore, toothmarks in
Triceratops
and other dinosaur bones show that
T. rex
punctured bone.” Erickson
et al.
(1996).

p. 261
“Despite the impressive size of this
T. rex
coprolite, it was surpassed by one from the Late Cretaceous Dinosaur Park Formation of Alberta, reported in 2003.” Chin
et al.
(2003).

p. 263
“Reported in 2005 by paleontologist Kurt Hollocher and three colleagues, these coprolites, like the tyrannosaurid ones, had bone fragments and were cemented with apatite.” Hollocher, K.T., Alcober, O.A., Colombi, C.E., and Hollocher, T.C. 2005. Carnivore coprolites from the Upper Triassic Ischigualasto Formation, Argentina: chemistry, mineralogy, and evidence for rapid initial mineralization.
Palaios
, 20: 51-63.

p. 264
“The conventional wisdom about grasses is that they first evolved from non-grassy flowering plants during the Cenozoic Era… .” Kellogg, E.A. 2001. The evolutionary history of the grasses.
Plant Physiology
, 125: 1198-1205.

p. 264
“The first detailed report on these coprolites was by Prosenjit Ghosh and five of his colleagues in 2003.” Ghosh, P., Bhattacharya, S.K., Sahni, A., Kar, R.K., Mohabey, D.M., and Ambwani, K. 2003. Dinosaur coprolites from the Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Lameta Formation of India: isotopic and other markers suggesting a C
3
plant diet.
Cretaceous Research
, 24: 743-750.

p. 265
“Plants, through different means of photosynthesis, take in carbon and nitrogen isotopes in distinct ways, which is then reflected by their stable-isotope ratios.” Todd, E., Dawson, T.E., Mambelli, S., Plamboeck, A.H., Templer, P.H., and Tu, K.P. 2002. Stable isotopes in plant ecology.
Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics
, 33: 507-559.

p. 265
“Additionally, C
3
plants make up nearly 90% of all modern vegetation, and include grasses.” Heldt, H.W. 2005.
Plant Biochemistry
. Academic Press, New York: 630 p.

p. 266
“So in 2005, Vandana Prasad and four of his colleagues hit the jackpot, finding grass phytoliths in the same Late Cretaceous coprolites from India studied by Ghosh and others.” Prasad, V., StroÅNmberg, C.A.E., Alimohammadian, H., and Sahni, A. 2005. Dinosaur coprolites and the early evolution of grasses and grazers.
Science
, 310: 1177-1180.

CHAPTER 9: THE GREAT CRETACEOUS WALK

p. 268
“It was a time when Australia was close to the South Pole, and dinosaurs presumably walked across broad floodplains of rivers that coursed through its circumpolar valleys.” Rich and Vickers-Rich (2000).

p. 270
“In North America, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico have tens of thousands of dinosaur tracks and plenty of other trace fossils… .” (1) Lockley (1991). (2) Lockley and Hunt (1995). (3) Lockley and Meyer (2000).

p. 270
“Dinosaurs certainly lived there, as evidenced by theropod and ornithopod bones and teeth recovered from Early Cretaceous strata (120–105
mya
) in Victoria, and theropod, ornithopod, and sauropod bones in central Queensland.” (1) Rich
et al.
(1988); (2) Rich, T.H., Vickers-Rich, P., and Gangloff, R.A. 2002. Polar dinosaurs.
Science
, 295: 979-980.

p. 271
“In the 1980s, Greg and his father, David Denney, assisted Tom, Pat Vickers-Rich, and a crew of volunteers… .” Rich and Vickers-Rich (2000).

p. 274
“For instance, some aquatic insect larvae dig burrows in sediments under very shallow water or on the surfaces of emergent sand bars… .” (1) Ratcliffe, B.C., and Fagerstrom, J.A. 1980. Invertebrate lebensspuren of Holocene floodplains: their morphology, origin and paleontological significance.
Journal of Paleontology
, 54: 614-630. (2)
Charbonneau, P., and Hare, L. 1998. Burrowing behavior and biogenic structures of mud-dwelling insects.
Journal of the North American Benthological Society
, 17: 239-249.

p. 274
“Insects and other invertebrates in polar environments cannot burrow into frozen sediment.” Danks, H.V. 2007. Aquatic insect adaptations to winter cold and ice. In
Aquatic Insects: Challenges to Populations
, Proceedings of the Royal Entomological Society’s 24th Symposium: 1-19.

p. 274
“Along those lines, I had published a paper in 2009 about physical sedimentary structures … and traces … on the North Slope of Alaska.” Martin, A.J. 2009. Neoichnology of an Arctic fluvial point bar, Colville River, Alaska (USA).
Geological Quarterly
, 53: 383-396.

p. 275
“In 1980, a little more than thirty years before Tom, Greg, and I stepped foot on Milanesia Beach together, Tom and Pat Vickers-Rich found this track.” Rich and Vickers-Rich (2003).

p. 275
“Still, I was lucky enough to have discovered possible dinosaur burrows and invertebrate trace fossils there, the latter nearly identical to the ones we were seeing that morning at Milanesia Beach.” Martin (2009a).

p. 276
“This track later became the template for thousands of reproductions used for science education in Victoria, and photographs of it appeared in many popular articles and books.” Rich and Vickers-Rich (2003).

p. 277
“The two tracks from 105-million-year-old rocks west of Melbourne—Knowledge Creek and Skenes Creek—were attributable to small ornithopod dinosaurs, like
Leaellynasaura
.” Rich and Vickers-Rich (1999).

p. 277
“Large-sized theropods, about the size of a smaller version of
Allosaurus
, likely made the two 115-million-year-old tracks in rocks east of Melbourne.” (1) Molnar, R.E., Flannery, T., and Rich, T.H. 1981. An allosaurid theropod dinosaur from the Early Cretaceous of Victoria, Australia.
Alcheringa
, 5: 141-146. (2) Molnar, R.E., Flannery, T., and Rich, T.H. 1985. Aussie
Allosaurus
after all.
Journal of Paleontology
, 59, 1511-1513.

p. 278
“… I was traveling in uncharted territory for dinosaur trace fossils, an ichnological analog to ‘The Ghastly Blank,’ an endearing term applied to the desert interior of Australia.” Actually, it was not such an endearing phrase in the 19th century, when Burke and Wills applied it to describe the region they explored and died in: Joyce and McCann (2010).

p. 283
“Nearly a year later, in early June 2011, Tom … succeeded in carrying out his quixotic goal.” In a video produced by Museum Victoria, titled
First Victorian Dinosaur Trackway
, Rich describes the recovery of these two sandstone blocks: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=TpMLuPWHTDA

p. 286
“They had a merry adventure doing this, climbing over hill and dale, while I, doing my best Marlin Perkins
Wild
impression, stayed safely on the beach… .” One of the recurring tropes of the TV show
Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom
(1963–1985), which I watched religiously as a child, was that the show’s host, Marlin Perkins (a zoologist), would stay in his vehicle (usually a jeep) while his assistant, Jim Fowler, would imperil himself while facing various deadly animals.

p. 287
“Sure enough, exactly one year later, on June 14, 2011, my coauthors and I … received the good news that our scientific article had been accepted… .” Martin, A.J., Rich, T.H., Hall, M., Vickers-Rich, P., and Vasquez-Prokopec, G. 2012. A polar dinosaur-track assemblage from the Eumeralla Formation (Albian), Victoria, Australia.
Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology
, 36: 171-188.