When is a Triassic fauna not Triassic?

In recent years among paleontologists who work on the Triassic/Jurassic boundary there has been some serious excitement about a new locality in northeastern Utah that hosts a wide variety of cool fossils. It has been named the Saint's and Sinners Quarry and has been actively worked by crews from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah since 2009. Based on abstracts and news articles it is clear that the fauna is diverse and well represented by multiple specimens. Having been at SVP in recent years I have been able to see images of the fossils coming out of the quarry first hand. Over 11,500 fossils have been removed from the quarry which Brooks Britt (from BYU) and others estimate is only 33% excavated. Virtually all of the fossils are preserved in 3D, allowing us to have spectacular insights into animals we do not have much data from, due to crushing and other concerns. Most of the specimens are even articulated! My hat is off to all of the BYU and Dinosaur National Monument crews who have been literally working on the edge of a cliff to extract these remains.

But. You knew there was a "but" coming, didn't you? But while the fossils themselves are spectacular there has been a trend in the last couple years to refer to this bone bed as being Late Triassic in age.  Admittedly aeolian deposits are hard to date; they tend to lack any significant ash deposits and detritial zircons (which can be used to constrain ages in other sedimentary rocks) are not really useful in sand dunes. That is what the Nugget Sandstone is - a deposit of windblown sand in western North America that began during the latest Triassic Period and persisted well into the Early Jurassic (see Sprinkel et al., 2011 for more details). This sand sea expanded as paleolatitude changed and western North America drifted further away from the equator and into the "dry belt" where warm, arid climatic conditions exist. This pattern can even be seen in the Late Triassic Chinle Formation at Dinosaur National Monument, as presented on at SVP this year (Irmis et al., 2015).

The first reports of the quarry (Chambers et al., 2011) suggested that Britt and colleagues at first assigned an Early Jurassic age to the deposit. This date was keeping with the general consensus that the Triassic/Jurassic boundary was somewhere within the Nugget. By 2012, however, it appeared that the teams views changed. That year Engelmann and others (note -the actual abstract doesn't appear to be available any longer) presented an abstract at the GSA conference in Charlotte, NC. In the title they state that a new drepanosaur has been found in the Nugget Sandstone and state that it has biostratigraphic importance. They also explicitly question the Jurassic age of the Nugget (they literally put a question mark in front of the word Jurassic) based on this new find. This new drepanosaur is pretty dang cool! The team expanded on it in recent SVP meetings (Chure et al., 2013; Chure et al., 2015). This critter seems to show highly derived characters shared only with Drepanosaurus (a European form) that indicate it was a specialized fossorial (digging) animal. The kicker here is that all other known drepanosaurs come from definitive Triassic strata. The Nugget drepanosaur comes from a quarry 55 meters above the last reliably dated strata (the Bell Canyon Formation, which sits between the Chinle and Nugget in northeastern Utah).

So what's the problem? Well this year the team again presented on some more spectacular fossils from the Saints and Sinners Quarry, including a large toothed pterosaur that is very closely related to the Early Jurassic European pterosaur Dimorphodon (Britt et al., 2015). This story has been picked up by the national media who have been reporting this site as being Late Triassic in age. Let's do a quick review of the evidence for a Late Triassic age.

Evidence of a Triassic Age of the Saints and Sinners Quarry

• Presence of a drepanosaur
• Presence of several small sphenosuchians
• In a formation that is traditionally considered to span the Triassic/Jurassic Boundary

Okay...that's not really a convincing list. This is especially true if you are claiming that this extraordinary interdunal wetland deposit represents a Triassic assemblage unlike any other in western North America. In fact two of the "pros" can actually be taken as a "con" and the third I think is ambiguous.
Allow me to present a list of why I have concerns about a Triassic age for this quarry.

Why the Saints and Sinners Quarry may be Jurassic in age

• In a formation that is traditionally considered to span the Triassic/Jurassic Boundary
• Quarry located 55 meters above the last Triassic-dated rocks (~1/2 the thickness of the Nugget)
• Presence of the most-derived drepanosaur yet discovered
• Presence of a pterosaur that is most similar to a Jurassic pterosaur
• Presence of a medium-large bodied theropod in the quarry in addition to a coelophysoid
• Presence of several small sphenosuchians
• No phytosaurs
• No aetosaurs
• No metoposaurs
• Upper Nugget lacks a Triassic ichnofauna

Well, does this mean case closed? No. While my list may be longer it isn't the final word on anything. Several of these points rely on the absence of taxa like phytosaurs and we all know that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Still, taken as a suite of things, I am not convinced that this quarry is Triassic. There are a few ways that perhaps we could do to see if I'm wrong.

• Phylogenetic analysis of the sphenosuchians - closely related to Chinle or Kayenta taxa?
• Phylogenetic analysis of new drepanosaur compared to the still-unnamed Ghost Ranch form
• Phylogenetic analysis of the theropods - are they closer to Coelophysis or later taxa?
• Additional fieldwork to look for unambiguous biostratigraphic markers

To me this fauna looks like a typical Early Jurassic fauna from western North America with a drepanosaur thrown in. Could it be an impoverished Late Triassic fauna that also has several highly derived taxa in it? I suppose and I will happily eat my hat if that is the case. What a great collection of Triassic taxa it would be! With the data that have been presented thus far I just can't see it though.

Why does this matter? Timing is everything in evolution. One of the big ways we as paleontologists talk about paleobiogeography is in terms of dispersal and vicariance. Are animals (and plants, and fungi, etc.) slowly moving into new areas or are populations split up by new barriers, isolating groups that then adapt in their own directions? To put it in the context of the Nugget fossils, are we seeing evidence that many disparate clades were widespread in the Late Triassic, or are we seeing similar taxa from elsewhere in North America in the Early Jurassic adapting to new environments? These questions have serious implications for our understanding of the rate of evolution among all these groups. By tying down the date of the Saints and Sinners Quarry we will be better able to answer some of these questions.

Final caveat: this is all based off of abstracts, talks, and posters and conferences, some of which I was unable to attend or access (this is why people should archive their conference presentations on FigShare - but I digress). I am extremely excited to see the peer reviewed publications that should result from these finds. And it may very well be that their method for dating the quarry is more nuanced than they have already presented. As always, I suppose, "Wait for the paper."

Works Cited
Britt, B. B., Chure, D., Engelmann, G., Dalla Vecchia, F., Scheetz, R. D., Meek, S., Thelin, C., Chambers, M. A NEW, LARGE, NON-PTERODACTYLOID PTEROSAUR FROM A LATE TRIASSIC INTERDUNAL DESERT ENVIRONMENT WITHIN THE EOLIAN NUGGET SANDSTONE OF NORTHEASTERN UTAH, USA INDICATES EARLY PTEROSAURS WERE ECOLOGICALLY DIVERSE AND GEOGRAPHICALLY WIDESPREAD. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Program and Abstracts, 2015 p. 97

Chure, D. J., Andrus, A. S., Britt, B. B., Engelmann, G. F., Pritchard, A. C., Scheetz, R., Chambers, M. MICRO CT IMAGERY REVEALS A UNIQUE MANUS MORPHOLOGY WITH DIGGING/SCRATCHING ADAPTATIONS IN THE SAINTS AND SINNERS QUARRY (SSQ) DREPANOSAUR, NUGGET SANDSTONE (LATE TRIASSIC), NORTHEASTERN UT Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Program and Abstracts, 2015 p. 107

Chure, D., Britt, B., Engelmann, G., Andrus, A., Scheetz, R. DREPANOSAURS IN THE DESERT: MULTIPLE SKELETONS OF A NEW DREPANOSAURID FROM THE EOLIAN NUGGET SANDSTONE (?LATE TRIASSIC - EARLY JURASSIC), SAINTS AND SINNERS QUARRY, UTAH: MORPHOLOGY, RELATIONSHIPS, AND BIOSTRATIGRAPHIC IMPLICATIONS Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Program and Abstracts, 2013 p. 106

Chambers, Mariah, Hales Kimberly, Brooks B. Britt, Daniel J. Chure, George F. Engelmann, and Rod Scheetz. "Preliminary taphonomic analysis of a Ceolophysoid theropod dinosaur bonebed in the Early Jurassic Nugget Sandstone of Utah." In Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs, vol. 42, no. 4, p. 16. 2011.

Engelmann, G., Britt, B., Chure, D., Andrus, A., Scheetz, R. MICROVERTEBRATES FROM THE SAINTS AND SINNERS QUARRY (NUGGET SANDSTONE: ?LATE TRIASSIC–EARLY JURASSIC): A REMARKABLE WINDOW ONTO THE DIVERSITY AND PALEOECOLOGY OF SMALL VERTEBRATES IN AN ANCIENT EOLIAN ENVIRONMENT  Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Program and Abstracts, 2013 p. 122

Engelmann, George F., Daniel J. Chure, Brooks B. Britt, and Austin Andrus. "The biostratigraphic and paleoecological significance of a new drepanosaur from the Triassic-? Jurassic Nugget Sandstone of northeastern Utah." In 2012 GSA Annual Meeting in Charlotte. 2012.

Irmis, R. B., Chure, D. J., Wiersma, J. P. LATITUDINAL GRADIENTS IN LATE TRIASSIC NONMARINE ECOSYSTEMS: NEW INSIGHTS FROM THE UPPER CHINLE FORMATION OF

NORTHEASTERN UTAH, USA Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Program and Abstracts, 2015 p. 149

Sprinkel, Douglas A., Bart J. Kowallis, and Paul H. Jensen. "Correlation and age of the Nugget Sandstone and Glen Canyon Group, Utah." Utah Geological Association Publication 40 (2011): 131-149.

Dr. Thomas Holtz is my George Clooney.

When people ask me what I would do if I met this or that celebrity, I always say the same.  "I don't get starstruck." I really don't.  Being a bartender for so many years in popular spots, I have met my fair share of celebrities.  However, believe it or not, I get more giddy meeting amazing people in the field of science.  These celebrities are rockstars in my book.  Not only are they cool, but they inspire future generations with awesomeness.  Dr. Thomas Holtz is my George Clooney.  Why George Clooney Gary?  Well, just like George Clooney screams Hollywood, Dr. Holtz screams science and paleontology. The world needs more celebrities in the field of education.  Dr. Holtz is one of those celebrities.

Hats off to you Dr. Holtz and Happy Birthday.  Thank you for being an inspiration to us all.  I haven't posted in a great while, so I thought what better way to clean off the rust than to honor a great paleontologist.  I took the summer off to work hard, venture off on two field classes, and try to relax before going into another year of classes.  Special thank you to Lisa Buckley and Robert Gay for contributing to this site.  You are good friends and this site is yours also.  The pub is about sharing science and promoting good friends, so anything I can do, I do my best to help others.

P.S.  My son is a big fan of Dr. Holtz and not long ago made a character of him in Lego's video game Jurassic World along with others.  Click here to see!  Thought I'd share it again if you haven't seen it.  It is truly an epic creation.

The Past Was Horrifying - Sounds of the Mesozoic

Okay, welcome to my part 2 of X on how the past was likely horrifying if we had lived through it. Today is going to be about what the Mesozoic Era might have sounded like. Apologies ahead of time but this will be a video-heavy post.

When we picture (or rather hear) what dinosaurs (and other prehistoric reptiles) may have sounded like most people will think back to dinosaur movies where the beasts are rampaging. Roaring, snorting, growling, and hissing creatures fill the screen with angry sounds. After the release of Jurassic Park, many of the sounds created by Universal's sound studio have been remixed and reused by other films both on large and small screens. Let's quickly review some of the iconic sounds that these creatures made back in the early 1990s.

Tyrannosaurus breaks out of its pen. Prepare to get T. rekt. Copyright Universal Studios.

My close friend (unfairly portrayed here) Dilophosaurus. Copyright Universal Studios.

The famous scene with Velociraptors in the kitchen. Copyright Universal Studios.

This gives us a great variety of sounds. From the deep bass rumbling roar of the Tyrannosaurus to the chirps of the Dilophosaurus, and the high-pitched screech of the Velociraptor we have great mood-appropriate sounds from our animal villains and protagonists. I especially love the sounds that the Tyrannosaurus in Jurassic Park makes. It gave me chills in the theater all those years ago and it still is exciting to me. But it also makes me question whether an actual Tyrannosaurus sounded like its cinematic depiction.

Since Tyrannosaurus and the other dinosaurs depicted in Jurassic Park are archosaurs, I figured it would be a reasonable place to start looking at the sounds our extinct friends might have made. If we can use extant phylogenetic bracketing for integument and parental care (among other things), why not the possible vocal capabilities? I decided to look at crocodiles and ratites + hoatzin, as my EPB.

What I found was frightening. The first thing I learned is that ratite sounds are not cute.

A modern Rhea, doing Rhea things.

Ostriches with their absurdly low booming sounds.

The frighteningly unexpected growls of the modern Cassowary.

The Hoatzin. Long video, but you can hear the sharp, chuffing near the start between parrot calls.

Being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to make myself listen to crocodilian sounds. Not only are they equally terrifying, but they also share some similarities to some of the ratite sounds.

Crocodilians have primeval sounding roars and the occasional hiss.

What is the takeaway from this investigation? For me, it is the idea that screeching, chirping, and otherwise boisterous dinosaurs may not be as plausible as Hollywood would like us to believe. Both croc and modern less-derived birds generally do not make "songs" or "calls" but rather deep rumbles/roars and occasional hisses/clicks. The shriek of the Jurassic Park Velociraptor, spliced together with dolphin and monkey sounds doesn't seem so plausible to me. Nor does the pretty sounding cry of our oddly-hopping Dilophosaurus (or it's rattlesnake-mincing attack cry) make much sense if the similarities between our EPB creatures represent a real signal. But what of our beloved Tyrannosaurus call?

A collection of all the Tyrannosaurus rex sounds from Jurassic Park

To me, this is the most convincing of all the theropod sounds produced for cinema. It sounds the most like the creatures I sampled for my EPB. But there is also another potential problem: size. Just as a tuba sounds deeper than a flute, the size of an animal's resonating chamber (larynx/sirynx) affects the deepness of the sounds it produces. Our largest terrestrial animal today, the African Elephant, is able to produce infrasound (sound too low to hear). The idea of large theropods or sauropods being able to produce infrasound is not itself unreasonable. The large birds and crocs I listened are already producing super-low frequency sounds and crocs are known to produce infrasound during mating season. The Mesozoic world may have been punctuated by low frequency roars and rumbles and silent periods interrupted by a strange feeling in your bones as a large sauropod or theropod let out a noise too low for our ears to hear.

"But wait," my ornithischian fans cry out (Pete, I'm looking at you...)! "What is this saurischian bias?" Well one reason for my saurischian bias is that most (but not all!) movie dinosaurs that make sounds are saurischians. Another is that we have to do a bit less speculation on the possible sounds some ornithischians would have made thanks to Sandia Labs and their 3D reproduction of a Paraaurolophus crest. While not perfect, it gives us an idea of what type of sounds large hadrosaurs may have been able to produce. It is worth noting that this reconstructed vocalization is a low sound, similar to what I've been suggesting for saurischians.

Ignore the metallic overtones...

Compared to the Jurassic Park Parasaurolophus cry...

Moral of the story: the Mesozoic would sound very little like what we imagine it to, based on depictions in cinema and television. Dinosaurs at least would have been making sounds more like their modern relatives than the mixed-up mammal sounds studios are fond of using. This would create an audio landscape deeply unfamiliar to our modern ears.

I'll leave you with one more clip: perhaps the most accurate dinosaur sounds in all of cinema history. Next time from me: discussion of a new tooth paper out in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology standardizing theropod tooth nomenclature, an issue near and dear to me at the moment!

1969's Valley of Gwangi, featuring an Allosaurus and a Styracosaurus

Richard Delgado's Age of Reptiles: Ancient Egyptians

I have been a fan of Richard Delgado's Age of Reptiles series for a little while now. If you are unfamiliar with the series it is a comic that focuses on recreating the prehistoric world. Delgado has looked at the Morrison and Clovery Formations in the past with his previous volumes but it has been several years. Now he takes aim at the paleoecosystems of North Africa in the Late Cretaceous.

The cover of Issue 1. Copyright Dark Horse Comics.

 The story follows, so far, the exploits of a lone Spinosaurus as it cruises around the mangroves and deltas of what is now Egypt. The first thing that jumped out at me is that the animals in Ancient Egyptians are far more accurate than in some of his earlier works. For example:

What is happening here? Anatomy? Physiology? MAKE THEM FIGHT! Copyright Dark Horse Comics.

While the artwork has always been pleasant to downright gorgeous in previous installments of Age of Reptiles, I find the accuracy and beauty of this latest outing is commendable. I will state that I am not someone who works on Cretaceous vertebrates from North Africa, but looking at the animals and scenes presented in the first two issues of Ancient Egyptians I don't see anything that immediately jumps out at me as being horrendously wrong either paleontologically or behaviorally. I am impressed at the care that Delgado has put into portraying his animals and scenes.

Scene from Ancient Egyptians, copyright Dark Horse Comics. Holy cow, look at the difference between the earlier work and now! Blood, poop, backgrounds!

Ancient Egyptians does suffer one setback. This series doesn't fully take into account how recent work has changed our understanding of what Spinosaurus looked like. The sail is shown as one uninterrupted convex bulge. The forelimbs are long but the hind feet show three functional digits and no webbing. Both of these are contra Ibrahim et al. (2014). To his credit(?), Spinosaurus is shown on all fours multiple times...but that may not be reasonable considering it is a theropod. And Delgado does like to pronate his theropod hands.

The cover of Issue 2. Copyright Dark Horse Comics. The two back animals show pronated hands.

 Regardless, Delgado does a great job of making Spinosaurus seem alive and an actual animal, not like a monstrous killing machine (I'm looking at you Jurassic Park III). His Spinosaurus seems real. It poops. It fights. It sleeps. It fails at hunting. It hides. It tries to mate. It has the wounds to prove it.

The scarred protagonist Spinosaurus. Copyright Dark Horse Comics.

It isn't just the main character that seems real. Herbivores are violent and protective - not dumb domestic cows with scales. Mating and rearing rituals are brutal but also in line with what we know about modern animals. It may be hard to look at some of the illustrations later in Issue 2 but on the other side they are in line with what we know about how some modern adult males act in the presence of unrelated juveniles.

Issue 3 just came out at the end of last week and Issue 4 comes out in September. I am looking forward to picking them up and finishing the tale which Delgado likens to Samurai and Western classic films. The absence of narrative text might put some off but for myself I find it adds to the immersion. Where will the lone Spinosaurus find himself at the end of his journey?

The cover of Issue 3. Copyright Dark Horse Comics.

References:

Delgado, Richard. "Age of Reptiles: Ancient Egyptians" Dark Horse Comics. (2015).

Ibrahim, Nizar, Paul C. Sereno, Cristiano Dal Sasso, Simone Maganuco, Matteo Fabbri, David M. Martill, Samir Zouhri, Nathan Myhrvold, and Dawid A. Iurino. "Semiaquatic adaptations in a giant predatory dinosaur." Science 345, no. 6204 (2014): 1613-1616.

Tap Talk Tuesday with Dr. Phillip Manning!

It's a rainy day out in the field, so while I wait for things to dry up around here, I thought I'd post an an interview.  This interview however was from way back in 2011. The questions I asked pretty much set the standard for the questions I still ask today when interviewing.  I have tweaked them over the years, but I came up with the following series of questions because it was what I wanted to know as a kid.  The interviews I've given over the years have been wonderful. I appreciate the time that everyone has set aside to do them for me and I'm always thankful for the opportunity.  OK, let's see what it's doing outside.  I will report more soon from the field, but in the meantime, enjoy one of my first interviews below.  Until later later everyone!

For those of you who may not know, Dr. Phillip Manning is an internationally renowned paleontologist, fossil hunter and writer.  He has taught vertebrate paleontology and evolution at the Universities of Liverpool and Manchester and currently heads the Paleontology Research Group in the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences (SEAES) at the University of Manchester.  Dr. Manning has published papers on many diverse subjects, including dinosaur tracks, theropod biomechanics, arthropod paleontology, vertebrate locomotion, and the evolution of flight in birds.  Along with his long list of many accomplishments that continues to grow, Dr. Manning has also worked with National Geographic on an amazing series called Jurassic CSI.  

Dr. Manning has always been a hero of mine.  On May 17, 2011, I finally got a chance to meet the good doctor in person at a lecture being given by Dr. Jack R. Horner at The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, PA.  It was an absolute honor to meet such an educated gentleman in the field of paleontology.  I only wish that I had my copy of Grave Secrets of Dinosaurs by Dr. Manning for him to autograph.  I have fond memories of picking up this book when it first came out and never putting it down.  I highly recommend picking it up.  

Upon meeting Dr. Manning, I was a nervous wreck, but his humbleness will quickly calm you down.  He is a brilliant man, but also very down to earth.  Passionate about his work and someone I admire greatly. I appreciate him taking the time to hangout and talk with me that night.  I learned a lot.  Not long after that awesome night of meeting Dr. Manning, we exchanged e-mails.  I asked if he would be interested in doing an interview for my website and he graciously said yes!  So, without further ado ladies and gentlemen, I give you our interview.  Special thanks Dr. Phillip Manning. 

You are one of my heroes in the field of paleontology.  Who did you admire growing up?

I watched Sir David Attenborough on TV whenever I could. The series 'Life on Earth' was quite life-changing for me...I realised we lived in a big world. I have to point out, I was about 7 years old, living in a village in rural Somerset...quite the middle of no-where, but beautiful! I have been lucky enough to meet and work with Sir David on a BBC series a few years ago and he was 'the real deal', a splendid gentlemen and a scholar.

At what age did you get inspired to pursue a career in paleontology? 

When I first moved to Somerset aged about 6 or 7, I discovered I had Lower Jurassic (Lias) fossil in my own garden. That's when it started proper. However when I was aged 5, i visited the British Museum of Natural History in London, now called the Natural History Museum. Stood before me was the mount of Andrew Carnegie's Diplodocus...wow...that also had a major 96 feet impact on a very small child.

What was your favorite dinosaur growing up?  What dinosaur is your favorite now?

I had two favourites as a child, and yes...you can probably guess them both...Triceratops and T. rex. I am sooooooo grateful to have been able to find both these dinosaurs in the Hell Creek Formation now. In recent years I have grown very fond of Archaeopteryx....and hope to publish another paper on this beastie soon!

Paleontology is such a diverse field these days involving many disciplines.  What advice would you give to an aspiring paleontologist today?

My advice is simple, choose the subjects which you most enjoy, as it will be these in which you have most chance to excel. There is no single route into palaeontology, which I know is some folks chosen career path. Many of my palaeo colleagues come from both arts and science background...like myself, others are pure science and some are pure art. The key here, is I took a path that was dictated by no one. If there is a 1+1=2 path to palaeo, I'm afraid i do not know it, as thankfully we are all very different. Darwin made a point of celebrating variation within a single species :-) and we are no exception to this rule. To put it another way, there is no 'one size fits all' route for me to advise any budding bone-hunters out there. This is probably a good thing. 

However, If a person has a specific university course in mind, then I urge them to look at the entry requirements now...as this will be an affective gatekeeper after High School. If you have your heart set on being a palaeontologist, you have already taken the most important step. There are few places you can learn passion for a subject, as that is something only a few are gifted with at an early age. It seems that many such folks are also 'one' of the lucky ones.

Going to college these days and then on to grad school has become a daunting task.  Many people are unaware of how long it takes to make it to the finish line.  The rewards are great, but what would you say to someone pursuing professional studies after college?

This is a very tough question, as here I should put-on my 'professor hat' and spout the virtues University and grad school...however, like I said before...we are all very different. Some folks are terrible scientists and do not enjoy the rigours of academia, this is fine...it would be a strange world if we all ended up as 'Dr'. Some of the best field palaeontologists and great thinkers of the field did not have a formal college education. This is fine, many 'trained' academics have a tough time keeping up with 'amateur' enthusiasts. The 9 or 10 years it takes to scratch your way through 1st degree, masters and PhD can and usually is, very tough. I did it, but many do not complete their studies. I have to admit, that doing my MSc and PhD was certainly the hardest things I have done in my life.

What was or is your favorite research project?  What are some of your current projects?

Some of my favourite projects have involved digging-up dinosaurs on the Isle of Wight. I was lucky enough to help excavate the then un-named, Neovenator from the Lower Cretaceous back in 1989. It was more of a mud-bath than an excavation, as the Wessex Formation from whence it came is a tad sticky. This reminds me of my favourite joke! 'What's brown and sticky?.................a stick :-).....sorry!! My most recent projects have been involved with working on the Stanford Synchrotron, a particle accelerator than can generate super-intense x-rays that allows us to analyse the chemistry of fossils. We have mapped 120 million year old pigment patterns in Chinese fossil birds and even gotten a whiff of pigment in the famous Archaeopteryx....this work continues.

Jurassic Park was the movie I remember as a kid that fueled my passion for dinosaurs.  What was your most memorable movie?

I have to admit, Jurassic Park was quite a fun romp. I watched the UK premiere, as was studying for my Masters at the University of Manchester at the time. However, my favourite film...is not a palaeo-one, but Lord of the Rings....which I am sure will be overtaken by The Hobbit when that is released.

I remember meeting my first professional paleontologist.  Do you remember the first paleontologist you ever met?  Were you a nervous wreck?  

That's another tough question, as I was lucky enough to be taught Geology at school, so had an early intro to the field. However, when I was about about 11 years old I visited the local Museum in the ancient city of Wells (Somerset). I had some fossils that I needed identifying, as I was sure I had found a Lower Jurassic vertebra from a marine reptile....which it turned-out I had! Well's Museum is a strange little place (seemed huge to me then) and the Curator had an apartment in the Museum (strange, funny, odd, but what a great job!). I remember knocking on his door and then sitting down at a small table with my fossils finds. I honestly can't remember if I was worried or not...I think that happens when your much older. Most kids are fearless...I could do with some of that 'fearless' every now and then in my field of work.

Dinosaurs and the animals that lived at the same time as them were amazing creatures.  Why do you feel dinosaurs continue to fascinate us?

Dinosaurs are the ultimate 'safe' monsters. They are well and truly extinct, but 'monsters they be'...The sheer size and weirdness of these beasties never ceases to gob-smack me every time I see a new specimen.

What is your favorite time period?

The years from 1800 to 1860. This was an age of discovery. Here the world changed forever, from an Earth that was perceived to be 6000 years old and created by the hand of God, to an Earth of immense age inhabited by species that have evolved through the natural selective processes of 'decent with modification; into the 'endless forms most beautiful' to paraphrase good old Darwin. The foundations of 'modern geology' and the underpinning of palaeontology was also achieved in this period of time...it must have been a very exciting intellectual landscape in which to romp.

The time span in which the dinosaurs lived in was huge.  How do paleontologists remember all that information from such a vast era?  Do paleontologist focus on one particular subject?

We do not remember, those who say they do....are being economic. We use books, like anyone else, to brush-up on our knowledge as and when required. With the advent of the internet, we can now fact-check things and publish papers ever faster than before...which can be a pain in the rear sometimes, as many papers that should not be published...are!

Project Dryptosaurus has been my passion for as long as I could remember.  Why do you feel Dryptosaurus is such an important dinosaur?  

Dryptosaurus is a curious beastie in many ways. I have to be honest, I prefer Cope's name Laelaps, but this is sadly no longer valid :-( We have the lovely Tom Holtz to blame for that...thanks Tom ;-) However, we can thank Tom for bringing your beastie into the hallowed realm of the tyrannosaurs...woof! Any late Cretaceous large theropod excites folks...especially if they are the kin of T. rex. Here we have one of the worlds oldest discovered big predators from the Late Cretaceous, slap bang near some of the biggest human population centres in North America...we should know more about Dryptosaurus than T. rex!

Works Cited:

Dr.Phil Manning (School of Earth, Atmospheric and Enviormental Science - The University of Manchester). Web.10 Jan. 2012

Hold on to your margaritas!

Jurassic World!  My family loved it!  So many great moments, but one of the most memorable scenes for me was also the most brief.  It involved a gentleman evading a pterosaur attack while carefully moving his margaritas.  Two margaritas to be exact.  Epic!  As a mixologist, I fully appreciate this move.  Not to mention how much those drinks must of cost!  Earlier in the movie, a gentleman made a comment about $7 dollar sodas, so I'm sure these puppies must of fetched about 15 bucks a piece!  You bet your ass I'd take my margaritas with me!   I don't have a clip, but a brilliant artist made an animated gif about it!  If you click the picture, it will take you to the source.  

The gentleman who played the "Margarita Man" was actually Jimmy Buffett!  Brilliant!  Margaritaville is actually selling Margaritaville Isla Nublar T-Shirts!  I need to pick one up ASAP.

In honor of Jurassic Park, the movie, & Jimmy Buffett, I give you a Jurassic Margarita made by yours truly!  All the ingredients shown here made with fresh lime juice, dash of simple syrup, salted rim, & dash of cherry juice for effect.  Enjoy!

Lego Jurassic World!

The park is open and everybody is talking about Jurassic World!  My family and I loved it and you can say for sure that we are definitely obsessed with the movie.  I love having the feelings I did when I first saw the original film.  Seeing Jurassic World brought back old memories and created new ones for my son Joey.  Along with making a day of going to see Jurassic World, we picked up the Lego game featuring all four films!  Lego Jurassic World is an epic game.

Lego Jurassic World is an amazing game.  We picked it up prior to seeing the film, so being that the game featured all four films, we were careful to not play the new movie levels.  After all, this game is like playing the movies, but with Legos!  One aspect of the game that definitely stands out is the soundtrack.  Wow, truly wow.  We were so excited and blown away listening to Lego Jurassic World's stunning musical score. From the music to sound effects, this game was perfect.  The game also features the actors voices from all four films!  Another great part of the game my son Joey loves is the comedy that the game implements into the levels and cut scenes. I don't want to spoil the game for those who haven't played it, so I will just say the game has a lot of surprises that are cute and funny.  

OK, so as if this game wasn't awesome enough, it also allows you to create your own Lego characters!  That being said, my son Joey was so excited to create some of daddy's friends that are real people working in the field of paleontology!  How cool is that?  Below are a few examples and I will continue to add more in time as he creates them, so check back to this post soon.  Each character Joey created has a code that you can enter in the Jurassic World's Visitor Center via the game.  Simply enter the code and play as the Lego character you want.  I also included links to learn more about the real people.  Happy Lego building everyone!

Paleontologist Dr. Thomas Holtz

Unlock Code:  sBzBCQCyBCDBDBC

Paleontologist Lee Hall

Unlock Code:  DDBSBCGBVCVChBC

Paleontologist Jeff Martz

Unlock Code:  hCBVBCrCcBCjCQCH

Paleontologist Ashley Hall

Unlock Code:  BWBXBCnBdBCfBTB

Mixologist Gary Vecchiarelli

Unlock Code:  QcBwBCwCRCCpBFBJ

Paleontologist Heinrich Mallison

Unlock Code:  QBxBPBVCCVCfC

Paleontologist Andrew A. Farke

Unlock Code:  BBBSBCQCXCCqBxBN

Paleontologist James I. Krikland

Unlock Code:  DBBZBCFDWCCwBMCC

Paleontologist Donald Prothero

Unlock Code:  QwBfBClBmBClBxBH

Paleontologist Steve Brusatte

Unlock Code:  WCBkBCZCVCCXCxBJ

Paleontologist Anthony Maltese

Unlock Code: kCBDCCrCVCCXCxBJ

Paleontologist Tony Martin

Unlock Code:  hCBDCCpCVCCXCxBN

More Coming!  Check back soon!

New Jersey's Diplotomodon!

Image from Jurassic Park Institute.

In 1865, paleontologist Joseph Leidy described an isolated tooth found in Gloucester County, New Jersey. He believed it to be a marine reptile at first and named the beast Tomodon. As fate would have it, Joseph Leidy later changed the name to Diplotomodon in 1868 because the original name had been taken for another animal. Ironically enough, a dinosaur by the name of Dryptosaurus would suffer this same name ordeal years later.  Diplotomodon means "double cutting tooth." It lived during the same time as Dryptosaurus.  

In 1870, paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope described the tooth and believed it to be from a carnivorous dinosaur.  This idea is pretty much shared today.  Today, the tooth is mostly regarded as a nomen dubium or simply put, an unknown.  The sad part of this story is that although the tooth was described and photographed, it was lost. Hopefully in the future more will be discovered, but only time will tell.

Works Cited:

Gallagher, William B. When Dinosaurs Roamed New Jersey. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1997. 104, 110. Print.

New Jersey's Dinosaurs On A Jurassic Park Website?

Wow...remember the Jurassic Park Institute website?  For those of you who don't, the following article appeared in a 12/01/2001 issue of THE Journal:

Universal Studios has launched the Jurassic Park Institute (JPI), a science-based and educationally focused program that will include a Web site, a dinosaur-themed in-school program, traveling dinosaur-themed museum exhibits, and an online kids club in partnership with education.com. Working with some of the world's leading paleontologists, JPI will be factual and scientifically accurate.

The first phase of the institute's development is the launch of http://www.jpinstitute.com/, a Web site that features a variety of news, information, games, activities and guides for dinosaur enthusiasts. Visitors will find the latest dinosaur news, ranging from recent discoveries, to editorials from leading paleontologists, to entertainment news. Students will also be able to play a variety of dinosaur-themed games, and search through the Dinopedia to learn about their favorite dinosaurs and the world in which they lived. They can also locate dinosaur exhibits in their local areas. Beginning in early 2002, the site will be expanded to include a dynamic, in-school program. A series of traveling dinosaur exhibits is also set to begin in spring 2002.

The institute continues with the launch of JPI Rangers Club, a membership-based site located in education.com's KidSpace channel. The club will provide members with exclusive educational online games and activities, an online journal and more. Universal Studios, Hollywood, CA, http://www.universalstudios.com/.

I remember logging onto this awesome site on a daily basis and couldn't wait to see what was new!  I hope one day we will see this amazing site resurrected.  It really was a great idea and the possibilities could have been endless.  One part I remember most from The Jurassic Park Institute was a section called "DINOPEDIA".  On this page, you could access information on pretty much any dinosaur known at the time.  You could even look up three dinosaurs from New Jersey!  Well, Diplotomodon today is mostly considered a nomen dubium, which basically means "unknown."  Below are the cards from the site that are no longer accessible.  Enjoy!

Science Sunday with paleontologist Matthew Bonnan!

Matthew Bonnan is a vertebrate paleobiologist and an Associate Professor of Biology at Stockton University in New Jersey. His research focuses on the evolution of locomotion in sauropod dinosaurs and more broadly on the evolution of forelimb posture in reptiles, birds, and mammals. His research combines traditional anatomical approaches with computer-aided modeling, and recently XROMM (X-ray Reconstruction of Moving Morphology) to reconstruct the three-dimensional movements of limb bones in live mammals and reptiles. He lives in Hammonton, New Jersey, with wife and fellow academic Jess Bonnan-White, his two children, Quinn and Max, and several pets.

Question 1: 

You are one of my heroes in the field of paleontology.  Who did you admire growing up?

Hi, Gary. I’m flattered to be considered someone’s hero – it’s an honor! Have you met me? =) Growing up, I suppose several people who authored books on science and paleontology would vie for that title, including Bob Bakker, Greg Paul, and Carl Sagan. Honestly, though, it was Dougal Dixon who would prove to be the most inspiring because he responded to a type-written letter I sent him. I was thirteen and had read his book, Time Exposure. In that book, he made the argument that Tyrannosaurus rex was probably not fast and likely a scavenger. This did not sit well with me, and I wrote him, marshalling what data I could from the books in my bedroom, to explain why he was wrong. He not only responded, but was kind and encouraging even though he disagreed with some of my “theories.” It taught me a valuable lesson – in science, we can disagree without having to be disagreeable.

Question 2:

At what age did you get inspired to pursue a career in paleontology? 

I was five when I decided to be a paleontologist, but I don’t actually know why I decided that – I didn’t really have an “aha” moment like some people describe. Instead, I just got to really liking dinosaurs and reptiles in general, and that was how it went. Also, my fascination for dinosaurs waned like it does for many kids. Truth be told, I was also very fascinated by sound effects in movies and how soundtracks are edited. As a little kid, I would buy the records (I know, right, vinyl before it was cool!) of movies like Star Wars and listen to the music passages over and over until they were part of my DNA. Then if I saw the movie again, I would mentally note how they changed the music to fit a scene, and would try to replicate that on my cassette player at home. In college, I even did a stint as a DJ and got to edit and remix music for a show. I still do that as a hobby, so music production and editing might have won out.

But in middle school, out of boredom, I picked up a book on a bookshelf that Barrie Jaeger, a friend of my mother’s, had given me when I was five. It was John C. McLoughlin’s book, Archosauria: A New Look at the Old Dinosaur, and I was now old enough to read and understand it. And it blew my little mind. Here were dinosaurs that could be covered with feathers, or warm-blooded! His descriptions of herds of sauropods being following theropods was just so arresting to my middle-school mind, and I realized dinosaurs were actually pretty cool. It was around this same time that the books by Bakker and Paul were published, and I read those cover to cover, and was insanely jealous of the artwork. So, by the time I entered high school, it was pretty clear I was going to be a paleontologist for real … at least in my mind.

Question 3:

What was your favorite dinosaur growing up?  What dinosaur is your favorite now?

My favorite dinosaur growing up was Apatosaurus, although I did like Deinonychus and Velociraptor before they were cool. =) Something about sauropods was always fascinating – the size, the long necks, the image of these giants migrating across the landscape. My favorite dinosaur now is Aardonyx – I did help discover and name it, so there is some bias there.

Question 4:

Paleontology is such a diverse field these days involving many disciplines.  What advice would you give to an aspiring paleontologist today?

Paleontology is interdisciplinary, so you have to be flexible and open to different experiences. I think it’s important to identify your strengths and weaknesses and your likes and dislikes, and that’s why volunteering and internships are so important. You will never understand any science until you do it, so any experiences are valuable. For example, I think we give young people a skewed idea of what modern paleontology is about. There’s this an unspoken assumption that all of us are great in the field and spend every summer digging out new specimens. Some of us certainly are, but I am not among those who do. I found that anatomy and functional morphology (how the shape of the skeleton informs us about how it works) were my strengths and where my excitement in research lies. I have had the privilege of going to the field many times, but my strength is not in geology and field work. The discovery of Aardonyx, for example, was a team effort, and my role was assessing the anatomy and functional morphology of the dinosaur. But other members of the team helped us figure out when in time it was and the geological context – Johann Neveling, for example, is an outstanding field geologist, and were it not for his expertise we might not have any good idea about when and under what circumstances Aardonyxcame to be buried. Adam Yates is an outstanding taxonomist, and so he was able to establish the species based on his expertise.  And we were blessed to work with AnusuyaChinsamy-Turan who did the bone histology work which showed us Aardonyx was young and still growing. I guess what I’m getting at is that modern paleontology is diverse and requires integrated teamwork. Ideally, you all bring your joy and expertise to a problem or project, and the end result is bigger and better than the sum of its parts.

I suppose my strongest advice is go where the opportunities are and study the things that fewer people are looking at. Don’t pigeon-hole yourself too early and be flexible. There are so many things to study, and a great strategy is to study the organisms that fewer people are interested in at that time. In this way, you become a rare expert on a group of organisms or a part of their anatomy that few other people are, and that opens doors because it makes you a more valuable collaborator. As I found for myself, almost any organism or anatomy or evolutionary history is bound to have mysteries and questions to solve.

Question 5:

Going to college these days and then on to grad school has become a daunting task.  Many people are unaware of how long it takes to make it to the finish line.  The rewards are great, but what would you say to someone pursuing professional studies after college?

To me, the most difficult part of going to graduate school was watching my peer group get jobs, settle down, have families, and all of that other life stuff. I think it can be emotionally trying even if you are steadfast in your pursuit of research and you are doing something you love. You’re spending most of your 20s and in some cases part of your 30s earning very little, living paycheck to paycheck, and playing a game of calculated risk. After a while, it feels like your family and friends are looking at you like, “what are you doing with their life?” Sometimes people tell you something like that to your face.

I wrote a recent blog post on this topic, so to reiterate that a bit, I would say there is no one path to success. In the sciences, there can be this unspoken (or spoken) assumption that success is defined narrowly by landing a research job in a big lab with lots of graduate students. But there are many opportunities for those who can combine teaching and research. And you often end up working in teams these days, so many of us partner with different people in different labs or field stations, collaborating to use all sorts of equipment and supplies that would not be available to any one individual.

The good news is, once you manage to land a professorship, you often find that you will catch up with and in some cases surpass your peer group in terms of the life stuff. But there is no doubt going to graduate school is a difficult choice and a commitment. This is why you have to love what you do to get you through the difficult and financially poorer times. And to come full circle back to being flexible, don’t limit yourself in terms of what jobs you will or won’t take. Certainly, know your value and be true to yourself, but if you only wait for a particular type of position, you are often severely limiting your job prospects.

Question 6:

What was or is your favorite research project?  What are some of your current projects?

I suspect I am like a lot of scientists I know in that the current project tends to be the favorite project because that is where your mental energies and excitement are directed. To be fair, the discovery and description of Aardonyx was a highlight I will forever treasure. But since graduate school I have had nagging questions about forelimb posture in dinosaurs that were just not getting answered to my satisfaction using shape analysis and anatomical study. I felt I had sort of reached the end of what I could learn with morphometrics and comparative anatomy about four or five years ago, and wanted to do something I had always dreamed of doing since graduate school: x-ray movies of live reptiles and birds to see how their bones moved when they were alive.

I am grateful to Beth Brainerd, Stephen Gatesy, David Baier, Peter Falkingham, and the XROMM practitioners at Brown University for providing an unbelievable opportunity to learn their technique. For those who don’t know, XROMM allows you to reconstruct three-dimensional moving X-rays of live animal skeletons! One of the lessons that has slowly but surely sunk into my head is that when doing science, especially something new to you, start simple and get complex over time. Ideally, doing X-ray movies of alligators would have been fantastic, but the logistics of doing that right off the bat would have been daunting and dangerous. But then it occurred to me that forelimb posture in early mammals is debated (it seems early mammals had a less-than-erect forelimb posture), and so far as I could tell there were few studies on live bone movements (in vivo kinematics) on rat forelimbs. So what I’ve been up to the past three years has been learning XROMM and filming and analyzing rat forelimb skeleton movements. And it’s been fascinating. And I can’t say too much more because we’ve got a paper on this very thing that will come out sometime later this year, so you can all find out then.

I was fortunate in the meantime to receive internal support and support from various New Jersey funding streams to begin assembling my own XROMM lab at Stockton! Our lab director, Justine Ciraolo, is just the best and has been so supportive in getting our lab setup.  It helps as well to work with an amazingly friendly and helpful animal caretaker, John Rokita. I also have this fantastic physics colleague, Jason Shulman, who has been a great collaborator – there’s a lot of physics involved with any analysis of movement! We (my undergraduate students and I) currently have bearded dragons and monitor lizards, and we’re training those to run on a treadmill – that’s so they stay in front of cameras and X-ray equipment long enough to capture their step cycles. Yes, I know, lizards are not archosaurs and they’re not anywhere close to the size of sauropods, but they are in the size range of many of the early ancestors of dinosaurs and the earliest archosaurs had a non-erect forelimb posture. So we’ll see what we find. Bone form and function go together, and my hope is that once we learn more about how the bones of the forelimb move in living reptiles, we can compare the shapes to fossil reptiles and start putting some brackets on what was and was not possible in terms of movement. It’s all very exciting for me!

Question 7:

Jurassic Park was the movie I remember as a kid that fueled my passion for dinosaurs.  What was your most memorable movie?

Honestly, it was the Star Wars trilogy and the Indiana Jones movies that were my favorites growing up, and Jaws was in there too. I was a bit too old for Jurassic Park to fuel my passion, but I do remember being blown away by what were then amazing special effects. But I was also interning for Jim Kirkland, Dinamation International Society, and the Museum of Western Colorado that summer (1993), and so I was already being skeptical about what was projected on the screen.

Question 8:

I remember meeting my first professional paleontologist.  Do you remember the first paleontologist you ever met?  Were you a nervous wreck?  

I was in 6^th or 7^th grade when I met my first paleontologists at the Field Museum in Chicago – I grew up in Roselle, Illinois, which is in the Northwest suburbs around Chicago. I remember my mom took to me to a special kid and adult event on dinosaurs at the Field Museum and there was a lecture on dinosaurs by Bill Simpson and some other paleontologists at the museum. I nervously raised my hand and asked a question about coelurosaurs being related to birds (this was ~1986) and I was relieved that my question was answered professionally and seriously!  I think none of us realize the effect we have on others and how what seem simple gestures at one time can have profound and lasting impacts on someone’s life.

Question 9:

Dinosaurs and the animals that lived at the same time as them were amazing creatures.  Why do you feel dinosaurs continue to fascinate us?

I think dinosaurs stir the wonder and mystery that enthralls all of us. A dinosaur skeleton confronts you with the realization that on this same planet were different times and pasts that were alien but also very, very real. It’s that vertigo sense of deep time – that things have not been static but have and continue to change. Dinosaurs put things in perspective – there is no such thing as a typical time on Earth.  I know many paleontologists grow weary of answering questions about the death of the dinosaurs (well, the non-avian dinosaurs), but I think that does play a role in their popularity. Here you had these amazingly diverse and successful animals and then in a geological blink they were gone, perhaps under fairly catastrophic circumstances. If non-avian dinosaurs could go extinct, what about us? It’s fairly deep and heady stuff.

As a kid in the 1980s, I “knew” that birds had to be dinosaurs from reading books like Bakker’s Dinosaur Heresies, and so I think what has been mind-blowing to see is how much the acceptance of birds as dinosaurs has changed. When I was a Kindergartener in the 1970s, everyone “knew” the dinosaurs were gone for good. Now, we see them all around us – you can reach out and touch a live dinosaur! But I think it also shows us that dinosaurs were animals, and to truly understand them, we have to understand, preserve, and respect their living relatives and the great diversity of creatures that we co-inhabit the planet with.

Question 10:

What is your favorite time period?

Well, that’s a hard one. Not too long ago I would have told you the Jurassic period because that is when sauropods first became huge. But the Triassic is really pulling my heartstrings lately –that’s when the forelimbs of dinosaurs and mammals began a transition from a less to a more erect posture, and I want to know more about that.  The Cretaceous gets all the press, and for many good reasons, but I have come to value the beginnings of the Mesozoic to be equally intriguing because that is foundation upon which the great Cretaceous diversity was built upon.

Question 11:  Where can folks go to learn more about your research?

I have a blog called The Evolving Paleontologist: http://matthewbonnan.wordpress.com/

You can also follow me on twitter: @MattBonnan

Question 12:

What’s your favorite drink?

Bourbon and coke.

Gary:  Thank you!