#chilesaurus

Oooooh one of my favourite topics in evolutionary biology is Ghost Lineages!! Basically, a species appears in the fossil record but there's no real evidence for what its ancestors were or sometimes even what group it comes from!

The biggest ghost lineage in dinosaurs right now (and my favourite) is Chilesaurus diegosuarezi (although a new one has just been named today that I will absolutely make a post on, go look up Jakapil kaniukura)

Chilesaurus was discovered (shockingly) in Chile in 2004, and officially named in 2015. It's actually a really comprehensively known species, there are a load of specimens from different growth stages, and we have a pretty complete understanding of its anatomy!

One problem: nobody can agree on what the hell it is.

(skeletal diagram by Jaime Headden)

Chilesaurus has a frankly bizarre combination of features, none of which fit exactly into any of the main three dinosaur groups (theropoda, sauropodomorpha, and ornithischia). Now, this sort of situation is relatively common in very early dinosaurs, when their evolutionary trajectories hadn't diverged very far.

Other problem: Chilesaurus is not an early dinosaur. It's 145 million years old, from the Late Jurassic.

So here we have a dinosaur that seems to have the features of some of the earliest known dinosaurs and doesn't fit neatly into any of the major groups, yet it existed 90 million years into the reign of the dinosaurs without a single apparent ancestor in the fossil record in that entire stretch of time! what!!

I dunno just thought it was funny how to the point the name is. "it's a raptor in Utah, let's call it Utahraptor"

You blame Jim Kirkland over on his twitter for naming them that.

But yeah, "[Place name]saurus [place name]ensis" is a meme in the paleocommunity for a reason. (The word "ensis" meaning "from [place name]".) Image souce: Adam-Loves-Dinosaurs.

I think Utahraptor is probably the most famous one. When another large dromeosaur was found in Dakota, DePalma felt it natural to smash the usual dromeosaur suffix of "raptor" with the prefix of [Place name] to name Dakotaraptor.

A dinosaur not many realise was intended to be named after a place is Mamenchisaurus. (Source: Cervente on Tumblr)

It was discovered in (yes I'm using Wikipedia's text) Mǎmíngxī (马鸣溪 'horse-neighing brook') by Yang Zhongjian (楊鍾健), grandfather of Chinese Palaeontology. However, Yang wasn't from the area and mistook the intonation for the locale name. So he ended up calling it (馬門溪龍屬), from Mǎménxī (马门溪 'horse-gate brook').

That's probably the most fun one I can think of, but the others are like...

Koreacertops. Aegyptosaurus. Argentinosaurus. Patagotitan (Patagonia). Chilesaurus (Chile, but apparently it sounds like "dick" in latin countries?) Edmontosaurus (Canadian province, Edmonton). Albertosaurus (Candadian province Alberta, named after Princess Louise Carolina Alberta... named after Prince Albert). Gondwanasuchus (A crocodile actually, that was found in São Paulo, you know where, which USED to be part of the supercontinent Gondwana). Adamantisaurus is named from the same formation the croc was found, Adamantina.

Probably the most common kind of argument on the internet regarding dinosaurs at the moment is names and... IMO, it's not worth it unless it's REALLY bad or a bit mishandled, like Kuru kulla or Mamenchisaurus. But then, that's what the ICZN (International Code of Zoological Nomenclature) is usually for.

Decorative Dinosaur poster

Liven up your home or any other space with this lovely poster by our new featured artist, Emily Higgs. It features several unique and underrated dinosaurs. Can you recognise them all? Design by Emily Higgs

Sketch_Chilling Chilesaurus.