Tag Archives: dr. bakker

Quetzalcoatlas! Grand Hall Display Through Monday

Published by on in Paleontology
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Quetzalcoatlus 1.14.11
It’s MASSIVE. See a
full set of photos of the assembly of this fossil
from this morning on Flickr.

We’ve got a new visitor to the Museum’s Grand Hall – the giant Texas Pterosaur, Quetzalcoatlus!

Quetzalcoatlus northropi and its close kin can be considered as the largest animals to have ever flown – and the cast is indeed impressively massive.

This Quetzalcoatlus northropi cast was assembled today and measured to finalize the design of a Cretaceous vignette featuring three of the giant flying Texas reptiles. This recreated fossilized drama will be part of the new Paleontology wing scheduled to open in 2012.

Check out our progress on the new family wing!

According to Dr. Bakker, the plan “is to create a portrait of the giant Texas ‘dactyl defending its nest from a curious juvenile Tyrannosaurus.”

Dave Temple, our associate curator of paleontology, said, “Typically, we would uncrate the specimen, assemble, measure and pack it up over the course of an afternoon. I am glad we have the opportunity to leave it up for a few days to give the public a sneak peek at things to come.”

Be sure to visit this weekend to check it out! Tuesday morning, the Quetzalcoatlus northropi will be placed back in the crate until final installation in our new paleo hall in 2012.

Slideshow from this morning’s Quetzalcoatlus assembly:

Quetzalcoatlus Facts:

Quetzalcoatlus northropi was discovered in Big Bend National Park in 1971 by Douglas Lawson, a student of Dr. Wann Langston from the University of Texas at Austin. The species is named for the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl, who was worshiped in the form of a feathered serpent.

Quetzalcoatlus northropi probably weighed about 200 pounds and had as large as a 36 foot wingspan. Their large, toothless beaks create a bit of a mystery, at times hypothesized to have unearthed shellfish, arthropods, carrion and opportunistic hunting, similar to modern-day storks. Likely Quetzalcoatlus ate a variety of different items. This species went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous.

Dimetrodon Discovery! [VIDEO]

Published by on in Paleontology
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This morning, we were super-excited to see that the Houston Chronicle’s story about our paleontology team’s recent discovery of a Dimetrodon giganhomogenes made the front page!

Dimetrodon Found!

You can read the full story online, or check out the video below – the Chron’s fascinating interview from the site of the discovery with our curator of paleontology (and blogger!) Dr. Bob Bakker.

Can’t see the video? Click here to view.

See photos from the site on Flickr, and check back on the blog for updates from the team! And, get ready to see this apex predator in person when our new paleontology hall opens in 2012!

Discovery! HMNS Paleo Field Team Unearths Extremely Rare Dimetrodon

Published by on in Paleontology
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The Houston Museum of Natural Science Paleontology team has discovered an articulated specimen of a Dimetrodon on the Craddock Ranch in Baylor County!

The team named the fossil “Wet Willi”—“Wet” because it was found while excavating a drainage trench for the quarry, and “Willi” for Samuel Williston, a paleontologist and educator who was active at the site one hundred years ago. Dimetrodon bones are common in the Craddock quarry, but articulated fossil skeletons, like “Wet Willi,” are extremely rare. Most of the Dimetrodon fossils on display in museums across the country, and even globally, have come from this area of north central Texas.

Our Associate Curator of Paleontology Dave Temple shows what makes Wet Willi so special in this clip:

Can’t see the video? Click here to view it on Vimeo.

“Willi” represents a subspecies, Dimetrodon giganhomogenes, originally described by Paleontologist E.C. Case in 1907. The type of specimen he used for his description had no head; “Willi” is the first example of this species found with the head attached.

Wet Willi! New Dimetrodon Discovered by HMNS team
Get a load of those TEETH.
See the full set of photos from the site on Flickr.

In life, “Willi” was the dominant predator of his world, and he would have been 11 feet long with a four-foot vertical fin running the length of his body. The purpose of the prominent fin that defines this species has been debated since it was first discovered by Edward Cope in Texas in 1878. It was originally suggested that the fin was used for thermoregulation—self-regulation of body temperature, even when outside temperatures may vary drastically. However, it now seems more likely that this dramatic fin was for show—to intimidate enemies and fascinate potential mates.

“Wet Willi” will be the star of the Permian section of the Museum’s newly renovated paleontology hall, opening in 2012, and will serve as an ambassador from this geologic period for millions of patrons. The Permian ended with the worst mass extinction known, and was a direct precursor to the rise of dinosaurs. At present, the Museum has a mural of the Permian Period featuring a Dimetrodon, but no fossils on display.

Wet Willi! New Dimetrodon Discovered by HMNS team
See the full set of photos from the site on Flickr.

Over the past five years, HMNS field crews under the direction of Dr. Robert T. Bakker, paleontology curator for the Houston Museum of Natural Science, have collected hundreds of bones, teeth, and coprolites, as well as complete skeletons of the smaller reptiles and amphibians that lived alongside “Willi.”

“There is a very strong Texas connection to Dimetrodon, and we are thrilled to be able to display one in Houston, along with the other animals that made up this ancient ecosystem,” said Dr. Bakker, adding that the specimen is “jaw droppingly beautiful.”

Area ranchers agree; local cattleman Donald Coltharpe remarked, “The only thing prettier is a new born calf.”

Lucy’s Monstrous Misfits II: Upside-Down Mastodon

Published by on in Anthropology
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Dr. Bakker’s series on Lucy continues below. Check out  Part 1: Lucy – Out of Africa. Not! and Part 2: Lucy’s Monstrous Misfits: The Moose-Giraffe.

Why did some of Lucy’s neighbors score big bio-geographical successes, spreading over many continents?

Three More Cases: Hairy Monsters With Tusks & Trunks

Elephant bull 2
Creative Commons License photo credit:
Tambako the Jaguar (on the sea)

The Order Proboscidea includes all elephant and elephant kin – large to giant to super-giant herbivores with long upper lips transformed into trunks, plus long tusks. Tusks can sprout from the upper jaw or the lower jaw or both jaws.

Regular Short-Tusked Mastodons – “The Ohio Incognitum”

Regular Mastodons were the first fossil Proboscidea to be discovered – way back in the early 1700’s.  The legs looked like elephants’. The teeth looked like giant pig teeth.  Explorers in the Ohio Valley called the monster the “Unknown  Creature (Incognitum) from Ohio.” Formal name: Mammut.

By the late 1700’s full skeletons showed the whole beast – it was very like an elephant but shorter with a low forehead and short, stout upper tusks.  Lucy lived with Regular Mastodons who were very close to the Ohio Beast.

Regular Mastodons – The Long-Tuskers (Anancines)

DeinoAnancine copyLiving side by side with the Ohio Regulars in Lucy’s Africa was a close relative: The Long-Tusked Regulars. Technical name: the Anancine mastodons. In the Anancines, the super-long tusks stuck out so far we’d expect the beast to trip itself if it ran fast.

Upside Down Mastodon.

Now for the maximum weirdness among proboscideans: the Deinotheres.  Large to super large, Deinotheres had a long, long history in Africa, beginning way before Lucy or any other australopithecine. Body was elephantine – but the feet were small, with tiny side toes and three big ones in the middle.

The astonishing feature was the curved tusks. They were upside down. Instead of being in the upper jaw and curving up, the way they did in all normal mastodons, Deinothere tusks curved down and were in the lower jaw.

What good were upside-down tusks?

Old-timer scientists speculated:

“Maybe they hauled themselves out onto ice flows, like walruses do.”

Wrong. Deinotheres never lived in cold regions.

“Maybe they killed their prey with a downward jab.”

Wrong.  Deinothere molars were vegetable choppers, designed to munch big leaves and branches. All deinotheres were vegetarian.

“Maybe they used the tusks to cash down onto branches to break them off.”  “Maybe they fought each other in the mating season.”

Maybe.

World MapDeino

As global travelers, Deinotheres are intriguing. They were like hippos. Deinotheres spread over Europe and India and China. But they never conquered Siberia and never entered the New World, via the Bering Land Bridge.

Makes you think……

Why?