Mesozoic Miscellany #18

Happy Darwin Day!

Awesome LEGO Darwin by Kaptain Kobold, via Flickr.

Big Stories

You may remember back in September when a Brazilian newspaper reporter mistakenly leaked the name of Tapuiasaurus macedoi, a new titanosaur. Well, it's formally published now in PLoS ONE, and it's a valuable find. The abstract states, Tapuiasaurus "preserves the most complete skull among titanosaurians, further revealing that their low and elongated diplodocid-like skull morphology appeared much earlier than previously thought." More at Dinosaur Tracking.

Albinykus is this week's addition to the alvarezsaur roster. Switek also wrote about this guy at Dinosaur Tracking. About the incomplete, though unique remains, he writes, "Both legs seem to straddle the sandstone block, with parts of the hip preserved between them. Whatever killed it and preserved this dinosaur kept it in a seated position, just like a bird."

Around the Dinosaur Blogosphere

At The Bite Stuff, Jaime Headden takes a look at the debate over sauropod neck posture.

Trish Arnold wrote about that Terra Nova preview that aired during the Super Bowl.

Get a sneak peak at that plucky little tyrannosaur Traumador's new video series at The Tyrannosaur Chronicles.

The Darwinapterus paper that came out a few weeks ago, featuring an egg associated with what appears to be a female skeleton, has received the TetZoo treatment.

Gary from Project Dryptosaurus was on a radio show! Check it out.

Dave Hone wrote about anomalous theropod teeth from the Jurassic at Archosaur Musings.

At the Great Cretaceous Walk, the amazing, charming, Tony "Master of Ichnology" Martin* writes about Cyclone Yasi and how it relates to interpretations of gastroliths from the Cretaceous period.

At Other Branch, Ian provided another report on a dinosaur book from days of yore: this time, the Humongous Book of Dinosaurs.

And here at LITC, I released a set of dinosaur valentines and was a guest on the podcast "Meet the Skeptics!"

Twit Picks

• Crurotarsi on Neptunidraco
• Title page from Prehistoric Life, 1965 . Awesome crinoids!
• LOL, David Maas speedpaints Darren Tanke Prepping Gorgosaurus
• Chinleana: Cynodont Burrows from the Upper Triassic of Poland
• @superoceras continues walking In Darwin's Footsteps: Field Studies in the Galápagos Archipelago

Tumblin'

This illustration, by Eduardo San Gil, was shared by Rampaged Reality. +1 for citing the artist!


Paleoart of the Week

Since beginning this weekly digest, I haven't featured Matt Martyniuk here, so I will now right this wrong. This week's pick is a recent piece from Matt's DeviantArt account which is drawn from research. He writes:

Recent studies have shown that the wing and foot claws of dromaeosaurs were ideal for climbing trees, a behavior probably restricted mainly to juveniles in larger species like D. antirrhopus. But that probably wouldn't stop a near adult Deinonychus from attempting to climb as high as it could to avoid the attention of a 6 tonne sauropod killer as it passes through a gully in search of fresh water.

I was thinking about this research this week as I watched a couple of nuthatches in my yard. Nice to see an excellent piece of paleoart coincide with my idle musings!

Outrageously Off-Topic Indulgence

Amy Sedaris!

*I'm so sorry I typoed your name!