FIRST DINOSAUR FROM VANCOUVER ISLAND

This dapper fellow is a pine needle and horsetail connoisseur. He's a hadrosaurus — a duck-billed dinosaur. They were a very successful group of plant-eaters that thrived throughout western Canada during the late Cretaceous, some 70 to 84 million years ago.

Hadrosaurs lived as part of a herd, dining on pine needles, horsetails, twigs and flowering plants.

Hadrosaurs are ornithischians — an extinct clade of mainly herbivorous dinosaurs characterized by a pelvic structure superficially similar to that of birds. They are close relatives and possibly descendants of the earlier iguanodontid dinosaurs. 

They had slightly webbed, camel-like feet with pads on the bottom for cushioning and perhaps a bit of extra propulsion in water. They were primarily terrestrial but did enjoy feeding on plants near and in shallow water. There had a sturdy build with a stiff tail and robust bone structure. 

At their emergence in the fossil record, they were quite small, roughly three meters long. That's slightly smaller than an American bison. They evolved during the Cretaceous with some of their lineage reaching up to 20 meters or 65 feet.

Hadrosaurs are very rare in British Columbia but a common fossil in our provincial neighbour, Alberta, to the east. Here, along with the rest of the world, they were more abundant than sauropods and a relatively common fossil find. They were common in the Upper Cretaceous of Europe, Asia, and North America.

There are two main groups of Hadrosaurs, crested and non-crested. The bony crest on the top of the head of the hadrosaurs was hollow and attached to the nasal passages. It is thought that the hollow crest was used to make different sounds. These sounds may have signalled distress or been the hadrosaur equivalent of a wolf whistle used to attract mates. Given their size it would have made for quite the trumpeting sound.

This beautiful specimen graces the back galleries of the Courtenay and District Museum on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. I was very fortunate to have a tour this past summer with the deeply awesome Mike Trask joined by the lovely Lori Vesper. The museum houses an extensive collection of palaeontological and archaeological material found on Vancouver Island, many of which have been donated by the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society.

Dan Bowen, Chair of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society, shared the photo you see here of the first partly articulated dinosaur from Vancouver Island ever found. The vertebrate photo and illustration are from a presentation by Dr. David Evans at the 2018 Paleontological Symposium in Courtenay.  The research efforts of the VIPS run deep in British Columbia and this new very significant find is no exception. A Hadrosauroid dinosaur is a rare occurrence and further evidence of the terrestrial influence in the Upper Cretaceous, Nanaimo Group, Vancouver Island — outcrops that we traditionally thought of as marine from years of collecting well-preserved marine fossil fauna.

CDM 002 / Hadrosauroid Caudal Vertebrae

The fossil bone material was found years ago by Mike Trask of the Vancouver Island Palaeontological Society. You may recall that he was the same fellow who found the Courtenay Elasmosaur on the Puntledge River.

Mike was leading a fossil expedition on the Trent River. While searching through the Upper Cretaceous shales, the group found an articulated mass of bones that looked quite promising.

Given the history of the finds in the area, the bones were thought to be from a marine reptile.

Since that time, we've found a wonderful terrestrial helochelydrid turtle, Naomichelys speciosa, but up to this point, the Trent had been known for its fossil marine fauna, not terrestrial. Efforts were made to excavate more of the specimen, and in all more than 25 associated vertebrae were collected with the help of some 40+ volunteers. Identifying fossil bone is a tricky business. Encased in rock, the caudal vertebrae were thought to be marine reptile in origin. Some of these were put on display in the Courtenay Museum and mislabeled for years as an unidentified plesiosaur.

In 2016, after years of collecting dust and praise in equal measure, the bones were reexamined. They didn't quite match what we'd expect from a marine reptile. Shino Sugimoto, Fossil Preparator, Vertebrate Palaeontology Technician at the Royal Ontario Museum was called in to work her magic — painstakingly prepping out each caudal vertebrae from the block.

Once fully prepped, seemingly unlikely, they turned out to be from a terrestrial hadrosauroid. This is the second confirmed dinosaur from the Upper Cretaceous Nanaimo Group. The first being a theropod from Sucia Island consisting of a partial left thigh bone — the first dinosaur fossil ever found in Washington state.

Dr. David Evans, Temerty Chair in Vertebrate Palaeontology, Department of Natural History, Palaeobiology from the Royal Ontario Museum, confirmed the ID and began working on the partial duck-billed dinosaur skeleton to publish on the find.

Drawing of Trent River Hadrosauroid Caudal Vertebrae

Now fully prepped, the details of this articulated Hadrosauriod caudal vertebrae come to light. We can see the prominent chevron facets indicative of caudal vertebrae with a nice hexagonal centrum shape on its anterior view.

There are well-defined long, raked neural spines that expand distally — up and away from the acoelous centrum. 

Between the successive vertebrae, there would likely have been a fibrocartilaginous intervertebral body with a gel-like core —  the nucleus pulposus — which is derived from the embryonic notochord. This is a handy feature in a vertebrate built as sturdily as a hadrosaur. Acoelous vertebrae have evolved to be especially well-suited to receive and distribute compressive forces within the vertebral column.

This fellow has kissing cousins over in the state of New Jersey where this species is the official state fossil. The first of his kind was found by John Estaugh Hopkins in New Jersey back in 1838. Since that time, we've found many hadrosaurs in Alberta, particularly the Edmontosuaurs, another member of the subfamily Hadrosaurine.

In 1978, Princeton University found fifteen juvenile hadrosaurs, Maiasaura ("good mother lizard") on a paleontological expedition to the Upper Cretaceous, Two Medicine Formation of Teton County in western Montana. 

Their initial finds of several small skeletons had them on the hunt for potential nests — and they found them complete with wee baby hatchlings!

Photo One: Fossil Huntress / Heidi Henderson, VIPS

Photo Two / Sketch Three: Danielle Dufault, Palaeo-Scientific Ilustrator, Research Assistant at the Royal Ontario Museum, Host of Animalogic. 

The vertebrate photo and illustration were included in a presentation by Dr. David Evans at the 2018 BCPA Paleontological Symposium in Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada.

Photo Four: Illustration by the talented Greer Stothers, Illustrator & Natural Science-Enthusiast.

TRUMPET CALLS FROM THE CRETACEOUS

Reconstruction of Prosaurolophus maximus

When this good looking fellow was originally described by Brown, Prosaurolophus maximus was known only from a skull and jaw. Half of the skull was badly weathered at the time of examination, and the level of the parietal was distorted and crushed upwards to the side. 

You can imagine that these deformations in preservation created some grief in the final description.

Prosaurolophus maximus was a large-headed duckbill dinosaur, or hadrosaurid, in the ornithischian family Hadrosauridae.

The most complete Prosaurolophus maximus specimen had a massive skull an impressive 0.9 metres (3.0 ft) long that graced a skeleton about 8.5 metres (28 ft) long. 

He had a small, stout, triangular crest in front of his eyes. The sides of the crest are concave, forming depressions. 

The crest grew isometrically — without changing in proportion — throughout the lifetime of each individual, leading one to wonder if Prosaurolophus had had a soft tissue display structure such as inflatable nasal sacs. We see this feature in hooded seals, Cystophora cristata, who live in the central and western North Atlantic today. Prosaurolophus maximus may have used their inflatable nasal sac for a display to warn a predator or to entice the ladies, attracting the attention of a female.

The different bones of the skull are easily defined with the exception of the parietal and nasal bones. Brown found that the skull of the already described genus Saurolophus was very similar overall, just smaller than the skull of Prosaurolophus maximus. The unique feature of a shortened frontal in lambeosaurines is also found in Prosaurolophus maximus, and the other horned hadrosaurines Brachylophosaurus, Maiasaura, and Saurolophus. Although they lack a shorter frontal, the genera Edmontosaurus and Shantungosaurus share an elongated dentary structure.

Prosaurolophus maximus, Ottawa Museum of Nature

Patches of preserved skin are known from two juvenile specimens, TMP 1998.50.1 and TMP 2016.37.1; these pertain to the ventral extremity of the ninth through fourteenth dorsal ribs, the caudal margin of the scapular blade, and the pelvic region. 

Small basement scales (scales that make up the majority of the skin surface), 3–7 millimetres (0.12–0.28 in) in diameter, are preserved on these patches - this is similar to the condition seen in other saurolophine hadrosaurs.

More uniquely, feature scales (larger, less numerous scales which are interspersed within the basement scales) around 5 millimetres (0.20 in) wide and 29 millimetres (1.1 in) long are found interspersed in the smaller scales in the patches from the ribs and scapula (they are absent from the pelvic patches). 

Similar scales are known from the tail of the related Saurolophus angustirostris (on which they have been speculated to indicate pattern), and it is considered likely adult Prosaurolophus would've retained the feature scales on their flanks like the juveniles.

Image: Three-dimensional reconstruction of Prosaurolophus maximus. Created using the skull reconstructions in the original description as reference. (Fig. 1 and 3 in Brown 1916). According to Lull and Wright (1942), the muzzle was restored too long in its original description. The colours and/or patterns, as with nearly all reconstructions of prehistoric creatures, are speculative. Created & uploaded to Wikipedia by Steveoc 86.

CRESTED BEAUTY: PARASAUROLOPHUS

A delightful red crested hadrosaur

What do elephants, whales and duckbill dinosaurs have in common? A huge trumpeting sound. That's right.

Parasaurolophus was one of the last of the duckbills to roam the Earth and their great crests were the original trumpets. 

We now know that their bizarre head adornments help them produce a low B-Flat or Bb. This is the same B-Flat you hear wind ensembles tune to with the help of their tuba, horn or clarinet players. 

You can image these crested dinosaurs signaling the morning reveille, joy or sounding the alarm over great distances with their bugle-like calls to the other plant-eating members of their herd. 

These herbivorous ornithopod dinosaurs lived in what is now North America — and possibly Asia — during the Late Cretaceous, about 76.5–73 million years ago. 

Parasaurolophus had an interesting jaw structure with dental batteries containing hundreds of teeth that allowed these plant-eaters to tackle their meals with a sort of grinding motion analogous to chewing. 

With all that grinding came significant wear and tear on their specialized dentition so they evolved to have extra teeth waiting in reserve. They dined on plants from the ground up to a height of 4 metres or 13 feet. Once chosen, they would bite their chosen vegetarian meal, begin grinding and any extra green, leafy bits were held in their jaws by a cheek-like organ.  

Hadrosaur Eggs

As noted by the awesome American, cowboy hat-wearing palaeontologist Bob Bakker, lambeosaurines have narrower beaks than hadrosaurines, implying that Parasaurolophus and its relatives fed more selectively than their broad-beaked, crestless counterparts.

Parasaurolophus was a hadrosaurid, part of a diverse family of Cretaceous dinosaurs known for their range of bizarre head adornments. This genus is known for its large, elaborate cranial crest, which at its largest forms a long curved tube projecting upwards and back from the skull. 

Charonosaurus from China, which may have been its closest relative, had a similar skull and potentially a similar crest. Visual recognition of both species and sex, acoustic resonance, and thermoregulation has been proposed as functional explanations for the crest beyond its trumpeting roar. 

It may have produced low-frequency noises, similar to elephants, that you and I wouldn't hear but help them keep in touch over vast distances. The infrasounds of elephants are between 1 to 20 Hertz and can be heard by the herd up to 10 kilometres away. 

Enter Charles H. Sternberg in New Mexico

Charles H. Sternberg, American Palaeontologist

In 1921, Charles H. Sternberg recovered a partial skull (PMU.R1250) from what is now known as the slightly younger Kirtland Formation in San Juan County, New Mexico. 

Sternberg was an American fossil collector and palaeontologist active in the field from 1876 to 1928. He collected fossils for a whose who of famous folk and museums including Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel C. Marsh, and for the British Museum, the San Diego Natural History Museum and other museums. 

He sent his specimen to Uppsala, Sweden, where Carl Wiman described it as a second species, P. tubicen, in 1931. The specific epithet is derived from the Latin tǔbǐcěn  or trumpeter. 

A second, nearly complete P. tubicen skull (NMMNH P-25100) was found in New Mexico in 1995. Using computed tomography scanning of the skull, Robert Sullivan and Thomas Williamson gave the genus a thorough analysis and interpretation of its anatomy and taxonomy, including various hypothesis for the functions of its crest. Williamson later published an independent review of the remains challenging the previous taxonomic placement.

John Ostrom described another good specimen (FMNH P27393) from New Mexico as P. cyrtocristatus in 1961. Ostrom was an American palaeontologist who revolutionized our understanding of dinosaurs in the 1960s. 

His find from New Mexico included a partial skull with a short, rounded crest, and much of the postcranial skeleton except for the feet, neck, and parts of the tail. Its specific name was derived from the Latin curtus "shortened" and cristatus "crested." The specimen was reported as being found at the top of the Fruitland Formation but was likely from the base of the overlying Kirtland Formation. 

The range of this species was expanded in 1979, when David B. Weishampel and James A. Jensen described a partial skull with a similar crest (BYU 2467) from the Campanian-age Kaiparowits Formation of Garfield County, Utah. Since then, another skull has been found in Utah with the short/round P. cyrtocristatus crest morphology.

References:

• Abel, Othenio (1924). "Die neuen Dinosaurierfunde in der Oberkreide Canadas". Jarbuch Naturwissenschaften (in German). 12 (36): 709–716. Bibcode:1924NW.....12..709A. doi:10.1007/BF01504818.
• Bakker, R.T. (1986). The Dinosaur Heresies: New Theories Unlocking the Mysteries of Dinosaurs and their Extinction. William Morrow. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-8217-2859-8.
• Benson, R.J.; Brussatte, S.J.; Anderson; Hone, D.; Parsons, K.; Xu, X.; Milner, D.; Naish, D. (2012). Prehistoric Life. Dorling Kindersley. p. 342. ISBN 978-0-7566-9910-9.
• Brett-Surman, Michael K.; Wagner, Jonathan R. (2006). "Appendicular anatomy in Campanian and Maastrichtian North American hadrosaurids". In Carpenter, Kenneth (ed.). Horns and Beaks: Ceratopsian and Ornithopod Dinosaurs. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. pp. 135–169. ISBN 978-0-253-34817-3.
• Carr, T.D.; Williamson, T.E. (2010). "Bistahieversor sealeyi, gen. et sp. nov., a new tyrannosauroid from New Mexico and the origin of deep snouts in Tyrannosauroidea". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 30 (1): 1–16. doi:10.1080/02724630903413032.