What have you read lately?

[mamselle]

Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures discusses the life and work of this 19th c. female in the field:

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Anning

M.

[FishProf]

I teach about Mary Anning and that book is remarkably accurate about the paleontology.

[hmaria1609]

I read and own a paperback copy of Remarkable Creatures.  I thought it was good too.

[ergative]

I teach about Mary Anning and that book is remarkably accurate about the paleontology.

Can you fill in a gap for me? Brusatte makes a big distinction between things that looked like dinosaurs but weren't, and things that actually were dinosaurs. But it's not fully clear to me what the distinction should be. He himself admits that it's a bit arcane, but he didn't really lay out the characteristics that allow a paleontologist to say, 'yes, this is a dinosaur, but no, this thing isn't.'

[FishProf]

Sure.  You want the online lecture?

In short, Dinosaurs are Vertebrate Osteichthyan Tetrapod Amniote Sauropsid Diapsid Archosaur Ornithodire with an open acetabulum and an upright gait.

Wait, what?

Vertebrate = has a backbone
Osteighthyan = Bony Fish (has bones and lungs)

Tetrapod = Four-legged terrestrial

Amniote = Lays waterproof eggs (extant = birds, mammals, "reptiles")

Sauropsid = What is typically (incorrectly) called a reptile, has 2 holes in the roof of its mouth (palatine fenestrae)

Diapsid = Two holes in the side of head (upper and lower terrestrial fenestrae)

Archosaur = teeth in sockets, additional hole in skull in front of eye (anteorbital fenestra)

Ornithodire = Pterosaurs + Dinosaurs (plus birds)

Acetabulum = hip socket

Upright gait = Lugs under body, weight supported by bones (opp. to sprawling gait)

Therefore, Ichthyosuars, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs are all NOT DINOSAURS

[Vkw10]

FishProf, you've almost convinced me to seek a course in biological classification. I vaguely recall learning about vertebrates and mammals many decades ago, but I had no idea of the detail involved in those branching diagrams of classification.

[ergative]

Sure.  You want the online lecture?

In short, Dinosaurs are Vertebrate Osteichthyan Tetrapod Amniote Sauropsid Diapsid Archosaur Ornithodire with an open acetabulum and an upright gait.

Wait, what?

Vertebrate = has a backbone
Osteighthyan = Bony Fish (has bones and lungs)

Tetrapod = Four-legged terrestrial

Amniote = Lays waterproof eggs (extant = birds, mammals, "reptiles")

Sauropsid = What is typically (incorrectly) called a reptile, has 2 holes in the roof of its mouth (palatine fenestrae)

Diapsid = Two holes in the side of head (upper and lower terrestrial fenestrae)

Archosaur = teeth in sockets, additional hole in skull in front of eye (anteorbital fenestra)

Ornithodire = Pterosaurs + Dinosaurs (plus birds)

Acetabulum = hip socket

Upright gait = Lugs under body, weight supported by bones (opp. to sprawling gait)

Therefore, Ichthyosuars, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs are all NOT DINOSAURS

Thank you! This was exactly what I wanted. Brusatte talked about the upright gait a bit, but very little of the rest.

[mamselle]

When things are crazy everywhere else, it's so reassuring to know we can at least classify the dinosaurs we know about.

M.

[FishProf]

I'm actually teaching a course on Dinosaurs right now and I have to update this stuff (at least) weekly.

It's fun to study fields where what we "know" is ion a reasonable state of flux.

I'd hate to be doing cosmology lectures right now.

[ergative]

I'm actually teaching a course on Dinosaurs right now and I have to update this stuff (at least) weekly.

It's fun to study fields where what we "know" is ion a reasonable state of flux.

I'd hate to be doing cosmology lectures right now.

I only recently discovered that brontosaurs are now a Thing again. There was a long period in my later childhood when I went around smug in the knowledge that there's no such thing as a Brontosaurus, and the knowledgeable dinosaurophile should say Apatosaurus. Then a month or two ago I read a golden-era scifi book that mentioned Brontosaur and I realized my ten-year-old smugness was alive and well, so I prepared a long condescending post about it in which I was prepared to forgive the writer for not knowing the truth about Brontosaurs (although still holding firm that he was Very Wrong in his implication that they coexisted with early humans), and went to wikipedia to check out when, exactly, Brontosaurus had gone the way of Pluto--only to discover that they're back!

[apl68]

I'm actually teaching a course on Dinosaurs right now and I have to update this stuff (at least) weekly.

It's fun to study fields where what we "know" is ion a reasonable state of flux.

I'd hate to be doing cosmology lectures right now.

What sorts of students to you get in a course on dinosaurs?  Are they taking the class because it sounds interesting, or is this something they're required to do? 

[mamselle]

A friend in Colorado teaches about the dinosaurs whose footprints are fossilized in the park where he works.

I've always thought that would be fun.

(I did mean my previous post as a wry observation, not snark--hope that was clear...)

M.

[RatGuy]

Nearing the end of Devil in the White City. For some reason, my local library's algorithms think that Pacific Vortex! would be a good follow-up.

[archaeo42]

I'm actually teaching a course on Dinosaurs right now and I have to update this stuff (at least) weekly.

It's fun to study fields where what we "know" is ion a reasonable state of flux.

I'd hate to be doing cosmology lectures right now.

What sorts of students to you get in a course on dinosaurs?  Are they taking the class because it sounds interesting, or is this something they're required to do?

I used a course on dinosaurs to fulfill a science gen ed requirement. It looked like it would be the most interesting/fun of that grouping. I wasn't disappointed.

[mamselle]

I still have the fossils (trilobites, brachyopods, and microscopic conodants) that I found at Cowan Lake when taking Dr. Sweet's paleontology course at the end of my undergraduate program at OSU. The egg carton in which they were turned in, with labels, has been moved several times but remains intact.

Plus a huge rugosa coral that popped up in the middle of a path in a woods that used to be near the campus.

I agree, it was a most satisfying course.

M.