The Systematic Position of the King of the Monsters

A few weeks ago I was really excited to be contacted by Danielle Venton, a freelance writer working on a piece for Popular Mechanics about the biology of Godzilla! With a new big-screen appearance by Godzilla right around the corner, I thought this was a fun exercise in speculative biology. The piece is out now at Popular Mechanics and I highly recommend checking out "The Impossible Anatomy of Godzilla".

I've always been a fan of B-movies (especially ones that have been MST3K'd) and monster movies, so, in preparation for the new Godzilla film, I've been trying to brush up on my kaiju history. Perhaps unfortunately, my introduction to Godzilla was with 1998's TriStar film, which seems to be uniformly considered not that great an entry into the monster's filmography. In the process of helping out with Venton's piece about Godzilla, I also came across some really fun previous discussions of Godzilla's anatomy. I heartily recommend checking out Darren Naish's "The science of Godzilla, 2010" and "The anatomy of Zilla, the TriStar 'Godzilla'" over at Tetrapod Zoology, and Brian Switek's "What kind of dinosaur is Godzilla?" over at Smithsonian.com.

[Some of what I find is very silly. Godzilla flies using his rocket breath in Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster!]

Most discussions of Godzilla's anatomy use dinosaurs (for classic Godzilla) or lizards (for Zilla) as starting points, and it's generally understood that the original Godzilla design was a melding of an Allosaurus, Iguanodon, and Stegosaurus. However, it occurred to me that another group of diapsids might serve as plausible candidates for Godzilla's heritage: the pseudosuchians (or crurotarsans, if you prefer)!

Today's only living pseudosuchians, the crocodilians, have osteoderms in their skin, if somewhat less flamboyant than Godzilla's. The 'scale' pattern on their heads is actually formed through cracking of the skin during development, resulting in a texture similar to what's seen on Godzilla's body, which in turn is apparently supposed to resemble the keloid scars of nuclear explosion survivors.

West African dwarf crocodile (Osteolaemus tetraspis) at the Toronto Zoo.

All living crocodilians are aquatic quadrupeds with powerful tails, and Godzilla seems to be a pretty good swimmer using his tail as a propulsive mechanism. Although many pseudosuchians were quadrupeds, some, like the poposauroids, were bipedal! Pseudosuchians seemed to have typically retained most fingers on the hand, like Godzilla, but unlike most theropod dinosaur lineages.

As far as I know, and I certainly haven't done a thorough literature search on this, there are no known pseudosuchians with nuclear breath....but alligators can produce a mighty bellow during breeding season.

Could Godzilla represent a long-lost and enigmatic lineage of pseudosuchian? Should there be a Godzillasuchus? Tell me what you think in the comments!

Ultimate ROM

This summer, the Royal Ontario Museum unveiled a brand-new exhibit all about the dinosaurs of Gondwana. When Pangaea rifted apart during the Triassic, it split into two continents - Laurasia, represented by the modern northern continents of North America, Europe, and Asia, and Gondwana, represented by the modern southern continents of South America, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica, plus India, Madagascar, and New Zealand. The dinosaurs and other extinct terrestrial vertebrates of Gondwana differed from their northern neighbours, and we don't often see them in exhibitions in North America.

 

Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants of Gondwana features lots of interesting and sometimes obscure dinosaurs, some really great artwork, and some neat technological things (of which I am sometimes skeptical, but can wholeheartedly endorse here).

 

 

 

After a brief but informative introduction to plate tectonics, we're introduced to some of the earliest dinosaurs, like Herrerasaurus, Eoraptor, and the early ornithischian Pisanosaurus. In an exhibit that is definitely dominated by saurischian dinosaurs, it was neat to see this little fellow! Take note of the beautiful murals in the background, painted by Canadian palaeoartist Julius Csotonyi.

 

 

 

Ah, Cryolophosaurus. My second favourite dinosaur from Antarctica! ;)

This restoration of Cryolophosaurus definitely seems to have a more Dilophosaurus-y look to the skull, perhaps a result of recent phylogenetic analyses recovering a close relationship between the Antarctic taxon and other early, crested theropods.

 

 

 

As we move into the Cretaceous, the dinosaurs are arranged by geographic area on platforms. First off are African dinosaurs, including Malawisaurus, Nigersaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and (shown here), Suchomimus.

 

 

 

I was super excited to see a mounted skeleton of Ouranosaurus, a bizarre sail-backed iguanodontian.

 

 

 

Ok, hands-down my favourite critter featured in this exhibition was one of the smaller skeletons, and not a dinosaur! I am sorry, dinosaur colleagues! But his adorable stubby tail and marvelous coat of osteoderms stole my heart. This is Simosuchus, a herbivorous crocodilian from Madagascar.

 

 

 

 I'll perhaps also add that the Madagascar 'pod' of Majungasaurus, Rapetosaurus, Masiakasaurus, and Rahonavis was probably my favourite part of the exhibition, just because I've never seen any of these taxa as mounted skeletons before, and because they're just so, so weird. Also, Majungasaurus just wants a hug, WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME, RAPETOSAURUS?

 

 

 

I was very fortunate to get to see a lot of Patagonian dinosaurs last November during my visit to Argentina, but I'd never seen Austroraptor before. He is BIG! This 'pod' also features Buitreraptor, Carnotaurus, and Amargasaurus.

 

 

 

 

Although the dinosaurs are the main attraction, the main take-home messages of the exhibition are 1) continents move and 2) evolution happens. The dinosaurs are just the vehicle for delivering an exhibit that is actually all about the effects of plate tectonics on evolution, and I think that's awesome. Palaeogeography is prominently featured throughout the exhibition, and there's even an interactive team puzzle where you reassemble the continents into Gondwana. However, one of the most incredible things in the exhibit were the two giant Blakey palaeomap globes, animated to show the drifting of the continents. As you enter the exhibit, Pangaea breaks apart, and as you leave, the continents assemble into their current positions, and then keep going into the future! The video projections are staggeringly beautiful.

 

Honestly, I think this is one of the best dinosaur exhibits I have seen. It is bright, colourful, up to date, and packed with really good information not just about dinosaurs, but about broader themes in geology and evolution as well. Ultimate Dinosaurs is at the ROM for a limited time (I think until the end of 2012) and then it (hopefully!) goes on tour. GO SEE IT!

Dinosaurs at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales

After a little break over the holidays, let's finish up these Argentina posts, shall we? After my research visits to the Museo Carmen Funes, Museo Carlos Ameghino, and Museo de La Plata, it was nice to be able to visit the main natural history museum in Buenos Aires as just a tourist. If you're in Buenos Aires, it's well worth a visit.

The dinosaur hall is large and with a lot of Gondwanan dinosaurs you don't see very often. I particularly liked this sprinting Carnotaurus that fits nicely with Scott's recent paper on the tail of Carnotaurus.

Amargasaurus is one of my favourite sauropods. Who can resist those incredible cervical vertebrae? But even better is that this is one of the only dinosaurs I know of that is mounted in an egg-laying pose. It's really refreshing to see a variety of behaviours presented by skeletal mounts, and it is especially nice to see a herbivore doing something other than fleeing or eating.

Although a lot of this mount of Bonatitan is reconstructed, it is interesting to see such a small sauropod, and there was just something pleasing about the whole thing.

A bunch of early dinosaurs and dinosauromorphs are also featured, including a reconstructed Marasuchus, Hererrasaurus, and this Eoraptor.

Argentina of course has wonderful mammal fossils as well, and there was a great exhibit about the fossils found near Buenos Aires. I liked seeing this glyptodont without its carapace.

And who would have thought that ground sloths could be so dramatic?

There's also a really nice comparative osteology hall, with one of my favourite exhibits being this exploded crocodilian head.

This museum has one of the best bird galleries I've been to, so I'll save that for its own post, coming up next...

The winter term draws to a close, the fossils come out of hiding one last time.

We are very fortunate at the University of Alberta to offer several courses in Palaeontology (and not just through zoology or biology - they get their own PALEO course code). PALEO 418 and 419 cover vertebrate palaeontology in lecture and lab format, PALEO 414 focuses more on invertebrate paleontology and functional morphology, and PALEO 400 is a field school held right in Edmonton at the Danek hadrosaur bonebed.

Lucky for me, I got to TA the PALEO 419 labs this semester. PALEO 418 covers the origins of vertebrates, fish, early tetrapods, turtles, lepidosauromorphs, and marine reptiles. PALEO 419 covers the synapsids and archosauromorphs. And that means I get to teach people about dinosaurs!

The archosauromorph lab exam was held this week, and most of the specimens were out for review. It made for a pretty impressive sight when you walked in the lab.

Because a variety of instructors have taught this course over the years, we have a pretty good collection of teaching casts and specimens that covers a fair amount of archosauromorph diversity. Most of the specimens are casts, but we do use some original material that's relatively sturdy and/or abundant (things like ankylosaur osteoderms, hadrosaur limb elements, teeth, etc). The U of A also has a small but excellent palaeontology museum in the Earth Sciences building, and students are expected to check out certain specimens there throughout the semester. Because we have a variety of ceratopsian specimens from Dinosaur Park and Grande Prairie being prepared in our prep lab, we also did a 'field trip' there during the ceratopsian lab. Prospective students: the U of A is a good place to be for palaeontology!

But today the students wrote their exam, which means the semester is over for me (except for marking, of course)...and perhaps spring is on the way?*



*spring doesn't happen until June in Edmonton. Oh well.