Mini-Assignment 6: Prepare for the next excavation lab (caudal bones and trace fossils)
To answer the questions below, read pages 226-231 about dinosaur trace fossils and see box
6.1 and page 341 for information about the skeletal regions you’ll seen in lab this week.
1.
What trace fossil could serve as evidence that main dinosaur you are excavating was
predated upon?
(1 pt)
Some trace fossil evidence that could serve as evidence that the dinosaur we are excavating
has been predated upon would be toothmarks.
2.
What evidence could you use to support that a given coprolite was made by a dinosaur?
What might give you uncertainty about what animal made the coprolite?
(2 pts)
The size of the coprolite and if it has a lot of phosphatic elements from the undigested bones
of its food can give you evidence that it was made by a dinosaur.
3.
The ventral bones beneath the skeleton are called chevrons. What are the functions of
chevrons?
(1 pt)
The chevrons protect parts of the tail such as the nerves and blood vessels.
4.
What are the two types of bones represented in the caudal region of the organism’s
skeleton?
(1pts)
The caudal vertebrae and chevrons.
5.
Examine the figures of these dinosaur tails. You may need to be logged in to the library using
your NetID and password to view some images. Describe the differences you see among the
taxa
using at least 5 of the following terms
: centrum, neural arch, neural spine, transverse
process, chevron, osteoderm, caudal, sacral
(5 pts)
Ankylosaur:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=large&id=10.1371/j
ournal.pone.0006738.g001
Titanosaur:
https://media.springernature.com/full/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2F
srep06196/MediaObjects/41598_2014_Article_BFsrep06196_Fig1_HTML.jpg?as=webp
Spinosaur:
https://media.springernature.com/full/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2F
s41586-020-2190-3/MediaObjects/41586_2020_2190_Fig1_HTML.png?as=webp
The dinosaur tails of the Ankylosaur, Titanosaur, and Spinosaur have some notable
differences between them.
●
Centrum:
○
Ankylosauruses are highly armored dinosaurs with robust and compact in their
tail vertebrae. It contributes to their body protection. Titanosaurs on the other
hand are very long-necked herbivores and have elongated centrums in their tail
