Terrible Lizards

Following on from our last adventure into the realm of the very biggest dinosaurs, we now have a look at the other side of this issue which is that big dinosaurs started off very small. How do you get from a 5 kg hatchling to a 50 ton monster and what does that mean for how they lived and how palaeontologists identify adults and juveniles? Are there hundreds of ‘new’ dinosaur species that are just misidentified babies and can we tell? Then we are joined by out guest, comedian Alasdair Beckett-King who wants to ask perhaps the most pertinent question we’ve ever had, namely: What would be the best dinosaur to ride?

Links:

A couple of photos showing different dinosaur egg shapes from the near spherical to the greatly elongated https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/dinosaur-egg-musings/

A blogpost by Dave about his paper on telling adults from baby dinosaurs  https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/what-is-an-adult-dinosaur/

A blogpost by Dr Matt Wedel on the same issue but with a particular focus on the complications of growth in giant sauropods https://svpow.com/2016/02/18/dinosaur-life-histories-are-plicomcated/

Alasdair Becket King hosts Loremen Podcast and makes exceptionally funny youtube videos:

http://www.abeckettking.com/