WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.200 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We are doing something 00:00:02.200 --> 00:00:03.740 a little different to kick things off today. 00:00:03.799 --> 00:00:05.299 I want to start with a mental challenge. Oh, 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:08.939 okay. I like this. I want you, and you too, listening, 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:11.900 to close your eyes for a second. Just humor me. 00:00:12.080 --> 00:00:15.320 Okay, I'm game. Eyes are closed. I'm ready. Now, 00:00:15.339 --> 00:00:19.239 I want you to conjure up the image of a dinosaur 00:00:19.239 --> 00:00:21.879 discovery. I'm talking about that classic cinematic 00:00:21.879 --> 00:00:25.079 eureka moment where the sands of time are brushed 00:00:25.079 --> 00:00:27.969 away. What are you seeing? Well, if I'm pulling 00:00:27.969 --> 00:00:31.789 from the pop culture database in my brain, I'm 00:00:31.789 --> 00:00:35.329 seeing dust, lots of dust. Yes. Heat waves shimmering 00:00:35.329 --> 00:00:38.590 off the ground. I'm seeing a rugged, sun -baked 00:00:38.590 --> 00:00:41.070 landscape, maybe the Badlands of Montana or the 00:00:41.070 --> 00:00:43.810 Red Sandstone Canyons of Utah. Right, that classic 00:00:43.810 --> 00:00:46.009 American West look. Totally. And there's almost 00:00:46.009 --> 00:00:48.030 certainly a guy in a wide -brimmed hat, maybe 00:00:48.030 --> 00:00:50.270 a bandana around his neck, chipping away at a 00:00:50.270 --> 00:00:52.049 cliff face with a pickaxe. That'd be rugged. 00:00:52.310 --> 00:00:54.549 It's very Western. It's basically Indiana Jones 00:00:54.549 --> 00:00:57.689 with a rock hammer. Exactly. That is the Hollywood 00:00:57.689 --> 00:00:59.750 image. It's the romance of the American frontier. 00:00:59.909 --> 00:01:03.070 It's dry, it's hot, and it's very dramatic. But 00:01:03.070 --> 00:01:05.230 what if I told you that the real story, the actual 00:01:05.230 --> 00:01:08.489 moment that American dinosaur science was born, 00:01:08.670 --> 00:01:12.069 didn't happen in a desert canyon at all? I have 00:01:12.069 --> 00:01:13.909 a feeling you're about to dismantle my cowboy 00:01:13.909 --> 00:01:17.200 fantasy. I am. Because the story actually starts 00:01:17.200 --> 00:01:21.640 in a suburban backyard in New Jersey. New Jersey. 00:01:21.659 --> 00:01:26.079 Specifically, a wet, muddy, gray pit in Haddonfield. 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:28.920 Just a stone's throw from Philadelphia. It sounds 00:01:28.920 --> 00:01:31.560 completely improbable to modern ears. I mean, 00:01:31.560 --> 00:01:33.099 when we think of New Jersey, we think of term 00:01:33.099 --> 00:01:35.180 pikes and suburbs, not the land of the lost. 00:01:35.299 --> 00:01:37.620 Not at all. But you are absolutely right. And 00:01:37.620 --> 00:01:39.439 we are talking about an animal that, honestly, 00:01:39.599 --> 00:01:41.340 most people couldn't pick out of a lineup today, 00:01:41.439 --> 00:01:43.319 yet it started everything. We aren't talking 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:45.000 about the T -Rex. We aren't talking about the 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:47.359 Triceratops. No, we are talking about Hadrosaurus 00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:49.879 fulci. And while it might not be the movie star 00:01:49.879 --> 00:01:52.579 that the T -Rex is, I would argue, and the sources 00:01:52.579 --> 00:01:55.060 we have today back this up extensively, that 00:01:55.060 --> 00:01:57.519 Hadrosaurus is the most historically significant 00:01:57.519 --> 00:02:00.519 dinosaur in North American history. That is a 00:02:00.519 --> 00:02:03.819 massive claim. Most significant. You're putting 00:02:03.819 --> 00:02:06.019 it above the tyrant lizard king. I stand by it. 00:02:06.099 --> 00:02:08.379 I really do. This animal represents a massive 00:02:08.379 --> 00:02:11.319 turning point. Before Hedrosaurus, our understanding 00:02:11.319 --> 00:02:13.800 of dinosaurs was fundamentally different. It 00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:16.680 was wrong. This is the creature that forced humanity 00:02:16.680 --> 00:02:19.680 to rewrite the textbooks. It's the reason we 00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:22.759 know dinosaurs stood up. So our mission today 00:02:22.759 --> 00:02:25.900 is to unpack that claim. We are going to look 00:02:25.900 --> 00:02:29.590 at a story of firsts. This thing is just loaded 00:02:29.590 --> 00:02:31.770 with them. It really is. It's the first species 00:02:31.770 --> 00:02:33.830 identified in North America from a skeleton, 00:02:33.969 --> 00:02:36.009 not just a straight tooth. Which was the standard 00:02:36.009 --> 00:02:38.409 before this. The first dinosaur ever mounted 00:02:38.409 --> 00:02:40.370 for display in the world. Anywhere in the world. 00:02:40.430 --> 00:02:42.469 A huge deal. And the dinosaur that literally 00:02:42.469 --> 00:02:45.550 changed the posture of prehistoric life in our 00:02:45.550 --> 00:02:48.909 minds from a four -legged crawler to a bipedal 00:02:48.909 --> 00:02:51.830 giant. It's a journey that connects the earliest 00:02:51.830 --> 00:02:54.550 days of American science, we're talking pre -Civil 00:02:54.550 --> 00:02:58.129 War era, with modern medical technology, cancer 00:02:58.129 --> 00:03:01.169 research, and really complex evolutionary biology. 00:03:01.370 --> 00:03:03.189 It all starts in a mud pit. So let's get our 00:03:03.189 --> 00:03:05.990 boots muddy. Let's travel back in time, not to 00:03:05.990 --> 00:03:09.810 the Cretaceous just yet, but to 1838. We are 00:03:09.810 --> 00:03:11.990 in Haddonfield, New Jersey. Set the scene for 00:03:11.990 --> 00:03:14.969 us. Who is John Estall Hopkins? So John Estall 00:03:14.969 --> 00:03:18.580 Hopkins is a landowner. He's a local guy in Haddonfield. 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:21.840 And in 1838, he is not out looking for monsters. 00:03:22.240 --> 00:03:25.539 He is overseeing a very mundane, very messy agricultural 00:03:25.539 --> 00:03:28.699 task. He's overseeing a dig in a marl pit on 00:03:28.699 --> 00:03:30.680 his property. OK, we have to pause there immediately. 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:34.520 Marl. We see this word a lot in the older texts 00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:37.360 regarding this discovery. What exactly is marl 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:40.080 and why on earth is he digging it up? Marl is 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:43.120 this dense, heavy soil or mud that is rich in 00:03:43.120 --> 00:03:45.780 calcium carbonate and clay. It's actually a sediment 00:03:45.780 --> 00:03:48.159 formed in marine environments' ancient seafloors. 00:03:48.340 --> 00:03:50.479 So it's basically old ocean gunk. That's a great 00:03:50.479 --> 00:03:52.139 way to put it. In the 19th century, before we 00:03:52.139 --> 00:03:53.919 had bags of chemical fertilizer at the hardware 00:03:53.919 --> 00:03:56.680 store, marl was absolute gold for farmers. It 00:03:56.680 --> 00:03:59.300 was known as green sand. Green sand? Yeah. You'd 00:03:59.300 --> 00:04:01.039 dig it up, haul it out, and spread it on your 00:04:01.039 --> 00:04:03.099 fields to enrich the soil because of that mineral 00:04:03.099 --> 00:04:05.419 content. It was a huge industry in New Jersey 00:04:05.419 --> 00:04:07.360 at the time. So it's just fertilizer. He's digging 00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:10.639 for fertilizer. Basically. But it's messy stuff. 00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:15.240 It's often wet, sticky, gray -green mud. So Hopkins 00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:17.699 has a crew digging near a tributary of the Cooper 00:04:17.699 --> 00:04:20.800 River. It's dirty, wet, back -breaking work. 00:04:21.060 --> 00:04:24.019 And suddenly, the shovels hit something hard. 00:04:24.279 --> 00:04:27.220 And it's out of rock. No, they pull out these 00:04:27.220 --> 00:04:30.040 large, unusual bones. Now, you have to contextualize 00:04:30.040 --> 00:04:33.779 this. This is 1838. The word dinosaur had barely 00:04:33.779 --> 00:04:35.959 been coined in England by Richard Owen. That 00:04:35.959 --> 00:04:38.759 happened around 1842. So Hopkins is actually 00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:41.220 finding this before the word really exists in 00:04:41.220 --> 00:04:43.759 the public lexicon. So he would have had no frame 00:04:43.759 --> 00:04:46.819 of reference. Zero in America. The concept was 00:04:46.819 --> 00:04:48.660 virtually nonexistent for the general public. 00:04:48.899 --> 00:04:51.199 There was no Jurassic Park. There were no museums 00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:53.980 with giant skeletons. So when Hopkins sees these 00:04:53.980 --> 00:04:56.259 massive vertebrates. Does he scream? Does he 00:04:56.259 --> 00:04:58.279 call the newspapers? Does he rush to Philadelphia? 00:04:58.680 --> 00:05:01.360 No. He treats them as curiosities. He thinks, 00:05:01.379 --> 00:05:04.180 look at this big bone. He takes them home. He 00:05:04.180 --> 00:05:06.360 puts them on display in his house in Haddonfield. 00:05:06.540 --> 00:05:08.759 They became conversation starters. Like you have 00:05:08.759 --> 00:05:10.839 neighbors over for tea and you say, hey, look 00:05:10.839 --> 00:05:13.720 at this giant rock bone I found in the mud. And 00:05:13.720 --> 00:05:15.160 people would say, oh, that's interesting, and 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:17.600 then move on. And that's it. That's where the 00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:20.519 story ends for 20 years. That's it. For 20 years, 00:05:20.540 --> 00:05:23.160 they just sit there. That is agonizing. You have 00:05:23.160 --> 00:05:25.560 the key to American paleontology sitting on a 00:05:25.560 --> 00:05:28.959 mantelpiece in Jersey, gathering dust while science 00:05:28.959 --> 00:05:31.660 marches on without it. It is a classic example 00:05:31.660 --> 00:05:34.480 of how scientific discovery relies on serendipity. 00:05:34.980 --> 00:05:37.860 You need the object, yes, but you also need the 00:05:37.860 --> 00:05:40.060 right person to see the object. And Hopkins, 00:05:40.279 --> 00:05:42.519 for all his digging, wasn't that person. He was 00:05:42.519 --> 00:05:45.199 a farmer, not a comparative anatomist. He saw 00:05:45.199 --> 00:05:47.319 a weird big bone. He didn't see a revolution. 00:05:47.759 --> 00:05:50.160 But the right person finally shows up in 1858. 00:05:50.579 --> 00:05:54.029 Enter William Parker Folk. Right. So jump forward 00:05:54.029 --> 00:05:56.490 20 years. William Parker Folk is a member of 00:05:56.490 --> 00:05:58.490 the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. 00:05:58.870 --> 00:06:01.470 He is what we call a gentleman scientist, very 00:06:01.470 --> 00:06:03.990 connected, independently wealthy and very, very 00:06:03.990 --> 00:06:06.850 curious. He's not just a hobbyist. He's engaged 00:06:06.850 --> 00:06:09.720 with the scientific community. Deeply. And he's 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:12.500 spending the summer in Haddonfield and he hears 00:06:12.500 --> 00:06:15.420 about these bones. He hears the local rumors 00:06:15.420 --> 00:06:18.379 of the giant bones at the Hopkins place. Exactly. 00:06:18.519 --> 00:06:21.639 And unlike Hopkins, Folk has the background to 00:06:21.639 --> 00:06:23.060 understand what he might be looking at. He's 00:06:23.060 --> 00:06:25.240 been reading the European papers. He's heard 00:06:25.240 --> 00:06:27.939 of iguanodon. The light bulb goes on. Instantly. 00:06:27.939 --> 00:06:30.819 He visits Hopkins, sees the bones, and his mind 00:06:30.819 --> 00:06:33.160 just starts racing. He realizes immediately, 00:06:33.480 --> 00:06:35.319 these aren't whale bones. These aren't elephant 00:06:35.319 --> 00:06:37.939 bones. These are something else entirely. He's 00:06:37.939 --> 00:06:40.220 curious. city must have been electric. It was. 00:06:40.660 --> 00:06:43.480 He convinced Hopkins to let him go back to that 00:06:43.480 --> 00:06:45.819 original Marl pit. Now, remember, it had been 00:06:45.819 --> 00:06:49.740 two decades. A pit dug in mud 20 years ago doesn't 00:06:49.740 --> 00:06:52.139 stay open. No, it would be gone. It was likely 00:06:52.139 --> 00:06:55.399 overgrown, filled in with silt, maybe even underwater 00:06:55.399 --> 00:06:57.360 part of the year. It wasn't exactly a marked 00:06:57.360 --> 00:07:00.740 grave, but Folk was determined. He wants to find 00:07:00.740 --> 00:07:02.740 the rest of it. He does. He goes back to the 00:07:02.740 --> 00:07:05.540 site, which, by the way, is now a National Historic 00:07:05.540 --> 00:07:08.709 Landmark, the Hadrosaurus Fulci - site and he 00:07:08.709 --> 00:07:11.529 hired a crew. He started digging. And this wasn't 00:07:11.529 --> 00:07:14.250 just a casual afternoon with a trowel. This turned 00:07:14.250 --> 00:07:16.949 into a full blown excavation. I think we need 00:07:16.949 --> 00:07:20.310 to emphasize the what if here. If folk hadn't 00:07:20.310 --> 00:07:22.730 visited that summer. Oh, absolutely. If folk 00:07:22.730 --> 00:07:25.350 hadn't been summering in Haddonfield or if Hopkins 00:07:25.350 --> 00:07:27.649 had decided to throw the clutter away five years 00:07:27.649 --> 00:07:30.709 earlier during a spring cleaning, American paleontology 00:07:30.709 --> 00:07:33.269 might have been delayed by decades. We might 00:07:33.269 --> 00:07:35.069 have missed the window for the great dinosaur 00:07:35.069 --> 00:07:37.600 rush that followed later in the century. Because 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:39.560 the spark wouldn't have been there. It's entirely 00:07:39.560 --> 00:07:41.220 possible. The whole trajectory could have been 00:07:41.220 --> 00:07:44.060 different. So Folk is digging. He's finding more 00:07:44.060 --> 00:07:47.839 pieces. And he realizes he's in over his head. 00:07:48.259 --> 00:07:51.139 He needs the heavy hitter. He needs the professional. 00:07:51.360 --> 00:07:54.879 He contacts Joseph Leidy. The legend. Joseph 00:07:54.879 --> 00:07:58.160 Leidy is a titan of 19th century science. We 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:00.500 often hear about Marsh and Cope, the guys who 00:08:00.500 --> 00:08:03.339 had the famous bone wars later on. But Leidy 00:08:03.339 --> 00:08:06.000 was the father of them all. He was a mentor to 00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:08.420 them before they became bitter rivals. So he 00:08:08.420 --> 00:08:10.620 was the authority. He was a paleontologist, a 00:08:10.620 --> 00:08:13.639 biologist, a parasitologist, a comparative anatomist. 00:08:13.740 --> 00:08:15.959 He was the guy you called when you had a biological 00:08:15.959 --> 00:08:19.459 mystery. Folk sends word. You need to see this. 00:08:19.740 --> 00:08:21.480 Let's talk about what they actually pulled out 00:08:21.480 --> 00:08:24.379 of that mud. Because usually when we hear dinosaur 00:08:24.379 --> 00:08:27.139 discovery in the mid -1800s, it's remarkably 00:08:27.139 --> 00:08:30.019 underwhelming. It's like we found one tooth and 00:08:30.019 --> 00:08:32.740 we built a whole dragon out of it. Correct. Up 00:08:32.740 --> 00:08:34.679 until this point, North American dinosaur finds 00:08:34.679 --> 00:08:38.460 were extremely fragmentary. Joseph Leidy himself 00:08:38.460 --> 00:08:41.419 had named Trachodon and Dinodon based on teeth 00:08:41.419 --> 00:08:45.240 found out west. Enough to say something big lived 00:08:45.240 --> 00:08:48.159 here, but not enough to say what it looked like, 00:08:48.179 --> 00:08:51.320 how it moved, or how big it really was. But the 00:08:51.320 --> 00:08:53.419 Haddonfield dig was different. It was a treasure 00:08:53.419 --> 00:08:56.080 trove. They didn't find a whole beast. Let's 00:08:56.080 --> 00:08:58.100 be clear, it wasn't a perfect articulated skeleton 00:08:58.100 --> 00:08:59.960 like you see in Jurassic Park, where they just... 00:09:00.159 --> 00:09:01.879 Brush off the dust and there it is. But they 00:09:01.879 --> 00:09:04.100 found a significant portion of the skeleton. 00:09:04.299 --> 00:09:05.980 Give us the inventory. What was in the haul? 00:09:06.279 --> 00:09:08.299 Okay, let's go through the list because the specific 00:09:08.299 --> 00:09:11.200 bones matter. They recovered eight teeth, specifically 00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:14.440 from the maxilla, which is the upper jaw, and 00:09:14.440 --> 00:09:16.620 the dentary, the lower jaw. So just enough to 00:09:16.620 --> 00:09:18.740 know it was a plant eater. And how those teeth 00:09:18.740 --> 00:09:21.740 worked. They found fragments of the jaw itself. 00:09:22.350 --> 00:09:25.190 They found three partial dorsal vertebrae. Those 00:09:25.190 --> 00:09:28.909 are the backbones. And they found 13 caudal centra, 00:09:28.970 --> 00:09:31.409 which are the tailbones. And one of those tailbones 00:09:31.409 --> 00:09:33.370 was pretty special, right? Yes. They found an 00:09:33.370 --> 00:09:36.919 almost complete middle caudal vertebra. That's 00:09:36.919 --> 00:09:38.580 crucial because it gives you the shape of the 00:09:38.580 --> 00:09:40.519 tail, how thick it was, how much muscle was attached 00:09:40.519 --> 00:09:43.379 to it. But the real game changer, the thing that 00:09:43.379 --> 00:09:46.240 made ladies' eyes pop, was the limbs. The arms 00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:47.960 and legs. That's the part that tells you how 00:09:47.960 --> 00:09:51.259 it moved. Exactly. They found a partial right 00:09:51.259 --> 00:09:54.899 coracoid, a left humerus, radius, and ulna. That's 00:09:54.899 --> 00:09:57.340 the entire arm assembly. They found parts of 00:09:57.340 --> 00:10:01.279 the pelvis, the ilium, ischium, and pubis. And 00:10:01.279 --> 00:10:04.399 crucially, they found the left hind limb. The 00:10:04.399 --> 00:10:08.059 femur, tibia, fibula, and even foot bones. Okay, 00:10:08.120 --> 00:10:11.240 so compared to just a tooth, this is like finding 00:10:11.240 --> 00:10:13.320 the Rosetta Stone. It really is. It's hard to 00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:15.639 overstate this. Before this discovery, scientists 00:10:15.639 --> 00:10:17.700 had to guess the entire shape of the animal based 00:10:17.700 --> 00:10:20.480 on a tooth or a single bone. Suddenly, Lighty 00:10:20.480 --> 00:10:22.559 has the arms, the legs, the hips, and the tail. 00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:25.360 He can actually do math. He can do ratios. He 00:10:25.360 --> 00:10:27.580 can compare the length of the arm to the length 00:10:27.580 --> 00:10:29.980 of the leg. He can measure muscle attachments. 00:10:30.259 --> 00:10:33.419 He's not just guessing anymore. He's doing biomechanics. 00:10:33.559 --> 00:10:38.059 And that math leads to a revelation. But first, 00:10:38.200 --> 00:10:42.100 they have to name it. It's 1858. Leidy sits down 00:10:42.100 --> 00:10:44.440 to formally describe this thing. What does he 00:10:44.440 --> 00:10:47.179 call it? He names it Hadrosaurus Fulci. Let's 00:10:47.179 --> 00:10:48.659 break that down for the non -Latin speakers. 00:10:49.000 --> 00:10:51.600 The genus name, Hadrosaurus, comes from the Greek. 00:10:52.059 --> 00:10:55.440 Hadros means bulky or large, and soros means 00:10:55.440 --> 00:11:00.600 lizard. So, bulky lizard. Which, fair. It was 00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:03.720 big. It was huge. And the species name, Fulke, 00:11:03.860 --> 00:11:06.360 is obviously honoring William Parker Fulk, the 00:11:06.360 --> 00:11:08.240 man who recognized the importance of the bones 00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:10.919 and financed the dig. But I read in the notes 00:11:10.919 --> 00:11:13.000 that Lighty was being a little cheeky with this 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:15.220 name. He was. He had a good sense of humor. It's 00:11:15.220 --> 00:11:17.399 a bit of a pun. If you translate Hadrosaurus 00:11:17.399 --> 00:11:20.080 Fulke directly, it can be read as Fulk's Big 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:22.559 Lizard. I love that. Hey, Bill, thanks for digging 00:11:22.559 --> 00:11:24.120 this up. Here's a big lizard named after you. 00:11:24.259 --> 00:11:27.059 It's so perfectly 19th century gentleman science. 00:11:27.340 --> 00:11:29.539 It is. A nice little inside joke in the formal. 00:11:29.639 --> 00:11:32.120 records. So Leidy is looking at these bones, 00:11:32.200 --> 00:11:34.720 and he sees a connection to something found across 00:11:34.720 --> 00:11:37.820 the Atlantic. Yes. He recognized the bones were 00:11:37.820 --> 00:11:40.320 dinosaurian because they resembled the iguanodon. 00:11:40.419 --> 00:11:42.700 The iguanodon had been discovered in England 00:11:42.700 --> 00:11:46.809 decades earlier by Gideon Mantell. So Lady knows 00:11:46.809 --> 00:11:49.210 he's dealing with a dinosaur, a member of this 00:11:49.210 --> 00:11:52.730 new, strange group of reptiles. He's not working 00:11:52.730 --> 00:11:54.769 in a complete vacuum. Not a complete one, no. 00:11:55.149 --> 00:11:58.129 But as he starts assembling the mental image 00:11:58.129 --> 00:12:00.789 of this animal, he realizes something is wrong 00:12:00.789 --> 00:12:03.149 with the prevailing wisdom. Something is deeply 00:12:03.149 --> 00:12:05.309 wrong with how they're picturing these things. 00:12:05.490 --> 00:12:08.320 The old view. Right. At this time, the scientific 00:12:08.320 --> 00:12:10.700 consensus influenced heavily by Richard Owen 00:12:10.700 --> 00:12:13.559 in England, who coined the word dinosaur, was 00:12:13.559 --> 00:12:16.120 that dinosaurs were essentially rhinoceros -like 00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:19.940 reptiles. Heavy, lumbering. Enormous quadrupedal, 00:12:19.940 --> 00:12:23.360 plodding beasts walking on all four legs. Think 00:12:23.360 --> 00:12:25.940 of a lizard scaled up to the size of an elephant. 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:28.320 The Crystal Palace dinosaurs in London are the 00:12:28.320 --> 00:12:29.860 famous example of this, right? They're still 00:12:29.860 --> 00:12:32.009 there. They are. And if you go to Crystal Palace 00:12:32.009 --> 00:12:33.750 Park today, you can see them. They are these 00:12:33.750 --> 00:12:38.929 big, scaly iguanas on four sturdy, pillar -like 00:12:38.929 --> 00:12:41.450 legs. That was the absolute truth of science 00:12:41.450 --> 00:12:44.649 in 1850. But Lady looks at the hadrosaurus bones. 00:12:45.929 --> 00:12:48.090 And he starts shaking his head. The measurements 00:12:48.090 --> 00:12:50.250 just didn't add up for a four -legged walker. 00:12:50.429 --> 00:12:53.370 He observes a massive disparity between the forelimbs 00:12:53.370 --> 00:12:55.370 and the hindlimbs. How big of a difference are 00:12:55.370 --> 00:12:56.850 we talking? Are we talking a little bit? No, 00:12:56.889 --> 00:12:59.710 it's significant. The femur, the thigh bone, 00:12:59.850 --> 00:13:02.590 was over one meter long. It was massive and robust. 00:13:02.970 --> 00:13:06.090 The tibia was also huge, over 93 centimeters. 00:13:06.610 --> 00:13:10.129 But the forelimbs, the humerus, radius, ulna. 00:13:10.669 --> 00:13:13.350 were much smaller, much more slender, and less 00:13:13.350 --> 00:13:15.429 heavily built. So if this thing was walking on 00:13:15.429 --> 00:13:17.590 all fours? It would be constantly walking downhill. 00:13:17.830 --> 00:13:20.470 Or it would have this very awkward hunched posture 00:13:20.470 --> 00:13:22.629 where the head is way lower than the hips. It 00:13:22.629 --> 00:13:24.230 just didn't make biomechanical sense. It would 00:13:24.230 --> 00:13:26.289 look like a frog that was stuck mid -hop. It's 00:13:26.289 --> 00:13:28.850 just... It's not an efficient way to move if 00:13:28.850 --> 00:13:31.190 you weigh four tons. Not at all. It's a design 00:13:31.190 --> 00:13:34.669 for failure. So Lighty takes a leap, a massive 00:13:34.669 --> 00:13:37.450 intellectual leap. What does he propose? He suggested 00:13:37.450 --> 00:13:40.529 that Hadrosaurus did not walk on four legs. He 00:13:40.529 --> 00:13:43.370 reconstructed it as a biped. He compared it to 00:13:43.370 --> 00:13:46.190 a kangaroo. A kangaroo. That must have sounded 00:13:46.190 --> 00:13:48.470 insane to the Victorian scientific community. 00:13:48.769 --> 00:13:51.370 You're telling me this four -ton monster hops 00:13:51.370 --> 00:13:54.029 around like a kangaroo? It was a paradigm shift. 00:13:54.539 --> 00:13:57.000 He proposed that this massive animal, weighing 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:00.139 tons, stood up on its hind legs and used its 00:14:00.139 --> 00:14:03.000 tail for balance, creating a tripod effect. This 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:06.039 completely shattered the heavy lizard image. 00:14:06.200 --> 00:14:08.460 It changes everything. It suggested dinosaurs 00:14:08.460 --> 00:14:10.940 were dynamic. They were upright. They were distinct 00:14:10.940 --> 00:14:13.240 from modern reptiles in a way nobody had truly 00:14:13.240 --> 00:14:16.000 appreciated before. So Hadrosaurus is the animal 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:19.139 that stood up. That's a powerful image. And they 00:14:19.139 --> 00:14:21.419 didn't just write about it. They decided to show 00:14:21.419 --> 00:14:24.850 the world. And that brings us to 1868, the Philadelphia 00:14:24.850 --> 00:14:28.149 Academy of Natural Sciences. Lady teams up with 00:14:28.149 --> 00:14:30.850 Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins. Now, Hawkins is 00:14:30.850 --> 00:14:32.789 an interesting character. He's the guy who did 00:14:32.789 --> 00:14:34.610 those Crystal Palace sculptures in London, the 00:14:34.610 --> 00:14:37.850 four -legged ones. Yes, which makes it even more 00:14:37.850 --> 00:14:40.429 fascinating. He was an English sculptor and naturalist. 00:14:40.490 --> 00:14:44.090 He comes to America, sees Lady's work, sees the 00:14:44.090 --> 00:14:46.470 physical evidence of the bones, and basically 00:14:46.470 --> 00:14:49.649 says, I was wrong. Let's do it right this time. 00:14:49.980 --> 00:14:52.460 That's scientific integrity right there, to be 00:14:52.460 --> 00:14:55.220 willing to publicly undo your own famous work. 00:14:55.340 --> 00:14:57.860 It really is. They decide to do something that 00:14:57.860 --> 00:14:59.919 had never been done before in the history of 00:14:59.919 --> 00:15:02.320 the world. They are going to mount the skeleton. 00:15:02.740 --> 00:15:05.080 It's strange to think that there was a time before 00:15:05.080 --> 00:15:07.539 dinosaur mounts. We take them for granted now. 00:15:07.620 --> 00:15:10.039 You walk into a museum, you see a skeleton. But 00:15:10.039 --> 00:15:13.240 in 1868, this was groundbreaking. It was pure 00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:16.039 spectacle and science combined. Before this, 00:15:16.080 --> 00:15:18.580 you might see a few bones in a glass case. Letty 00:15:18.580 --> 00:15:20.460 and Hawkins wanted to show the animal as it was 00:15:20.460 --> 00:15:23.100 in life. They built a metal framework to hold 00:15:23.100 --> 00:15:25.720 the bones in that bipedal, kangaroo -like pose. 00:15:25.960 --> 00:15:27.899 But they hit a snag. They had a lot of the skeleton, 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:29.960 but they were missing something crucial. The 00:15:29.960 --> 00:15:32.299 head. The head. The skeleton lacked a skull. 00:15:32.539 --> 00:15:34.659 And that feels like a pretty big piece of the 00:15:34.659 --> 00:15:37.259 puzzle to be missing. How do you display a headless 00:15:37.259 --> 00:15:40.059 dinosaur? Well, Hawkins was an artist. He didn't 00:15:40.059 --> 00:15:42.940 let that stop him. He sculpted a plaster skull 00:15:42.940 --> 00:15:45.860 based on speculation. He looked at the modern 00:15:45.860 --> 00:15:48.379 iguana, since Iguandan was the closest known 00:15:48.379 --> 00:15:51.299 relative, and kind of hybridized it with what 00:15:51.299 --> 00:15:54.039 they knew of Hadrosaurus. So the head on the 00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:57.379 world's first mounted dinosaur was fake. Reconstructed 00:15:57.379 --> 00:15:59.779 is the polite scientific term, but yes, it was 00:15:59.779 --> 00:16:03.500 an artistic interpretation. It wasn't bone. Later, 00:16:03.519 --> 00:16:05.799 as we found related dinosaurs like Grypasaurus 00:16:05.799 --> 00:16:08.769 or Brachylophosaurus, Artists started using those 00:16:08.769 --> 00:16:12.090 skulls as models to fill the gap. But that original 00:16:12.090 --> 00:16:14.789 Hawkins skull was a best guess effort. I imagine 00:16:14.789 --> 00:16:17.029 this exhibit was popular. It was a sensation, 00:16:17.269 --> 00:16:19.970 an absolute blockbuster. It drew crowds from 00:16:19.970 --> 00:16:23.029 all over. It visualized the prehistoric world 00:16:23.029 --> 00:16:25.230 in a way books never could. People were lining 00:16:25.230 --> 00:16:27.549 up to see the monster of New Jersey. It changed 00:16:27.549 --> 00:16:29.409 the public consciousness overnight. It really 00:16:29.409 --> 00:16:31.889 did. It cemented the image of the upright dinosaur 00:16:31.889 --> 00:16:34.350 in the American mind for a century. But speaking 00:16:34.350 --> 00:16:36.409 of books, there was a bit of a delay on the academic 00:16:36.409 --> 00:16:39.299 side. Leidy had written his major monograph, 00:16:39.559 --> 00:16:42.220 Cretaceous Reptiles of the United States, in 00:16:42.220 --> 00:16:45.220 1860, but it didn't come out for five years. 00:16:45.460 --> 00:16:48.220 Why the long wait? The American Civil War. Right, 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:50.440 of course. The conflict disrupted everything, 00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:52.919 including scientific publishing, supply chains, 00:16:53.139 --> 00:16:55.679 and just the general focus of the nation. So 00:16:55.679 --> 00:16:57.940 while the bones were found in 58 and Lady had 00:16:57.940 --> 00:17:00.559 done the work by 60, the comprehensive scientific 00:17:00.559 --> 00:17:03.919 volume didn't hit the shelves until 1865 when 00:17:03.919 --> 00:17:06.619 the war was over. It really grounds this story 00:17:06.619 --> 00:17:09.519 in history. You have this earth -shattering discovery 00:17:09.519 --> 00:17:11.960 happening right as the country is tearing itself 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:15.019 apart. It does. It places the birth of American 00:17:15.019 --> 00:17:17.940 vertebrate paleontology right alongside the defining 00:17:17.940 --> 00:17:20.720 moment of American history. It's a reminder that 00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:23.019 science doesn't happen in a vacuum. It's subject 00:17:23.019 --> 00:17:25.460 to the same forces as everything else. So let's 00:17:25.460 --> 00:17:27.460 get physical. We've established it stood up. 00:17:27.539 --> 00:17:30.539 But how big was this bulky lizard? Give us the 00:17:30.539 --> 00:17:33.259 stats. It earned its name. Edressus was a large 00:17:33.259 --> 00:17:35.880 animal. We are looking at a length of about 7 00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:39.950 to 8 meters. So roughly 23 to 26 feet long. Exactly. 00:17:40.230 --> 00:17:42.130 That's a school bus, give or take. Maybe a shorter 00:17:42.130 --> 00:17:44.650 bus. A short bus, yes. But the weight is the 00:17:44.650 --> 00:17:47.250 impressive part. Estimates put it between 2 to 00:17:47.250 --> 00:17:51.470 4 tons. That's 2 .2 to 4 .4 short tons. To put 00:17:51.470 --> 00:17:53.430 that in perspective, that's like a very heavy 00:17:53.430 --> 00:17:56.670 white rhinoceros or a small Asian elephant. Exactly. 00:17:56.950 --> 00:17:59.650 Now, imagine an Asian elephant bouncing on its 00:17:59.650 --> 00:18:02.730 hind legs. That gives you a sense of the forces 00:18:02.730 --> 00:18:05.009 at play on those bones. And the bones reflect 00:18:05.009 --> 00:18:06.789 that. They look like they could handle that kind 00:18:06.789 --> 00:18:09.710 of stress. Oh, absolutely. Hadrosaurus is described 00:18:09.710 --> 00:18:13.670 in the literature as... Ponderously built. Ponderously 00:18:13.670 --> 00:18:15.970 built. I like that. It's not a ballerina. No, 00:18:16.009 --> 00:18:19.029 not at all. When you look at the figula, the 00:18:19.029 --> 00:18:21.450 eider shinbone, it is one of the most robust 00:18:21.450 --> 00:18:24.569 among all hadrosaurs. It was built to bear massive 00:18:24.569 --> 00:18:26.789 weight. This wasn't a sprinter. It was a tank. 00:18:27.029 --> 00:18:29.009 And what about lunch? What is this tank eating? 00:18:29.289 --> 00:18:31.750 It's a herbivore. It had a keratinous beak at 00:18:31.750 --> 00:18:33.529 the front of its mouth, perfect for cropping. 00:18:34.119 --> 00:18:36.019 Foliage stripping leaves off branches, maybe 00:18:36.019 --> 00:18:38.299 breaking small twigs. They're like a giant turtle 00:18:38.299 --> 00:18:41.359 beak, kind of. A good analogy. But the real engineering 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:44.240 marvel is the teeth further back in the jaw. 00:18:44.420 --> 00:18:47.440 The dental battery. Yes. This is a hallmark of 00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:50.609 adresaurs. They developed a specialized, complex 00:18:50.609 --> 00:18:52.890 dentition. They had hundreds of teeth packed 00:18:52.890 --> 00:18:55.269 together in columns to form these large, grinding 00:18:55.269 --> 00:18:57.730 surfaces. So it's not just one row of teeth. 00:18:57.910 --> 00:19:00.829 No, it's like a conveyor belt. As old teeth on 00:19:00.829 --> 00:19:03.410 the surface wore down from chewing tough plants, 00:19:03.730 --> 00:19:06.250 new ones were constantly erupting from underneath 00:19:06.250 --> 00:19:09.150 to replace them. It was a highly efficient food 00:19:09.150 --> 00:19:12.049 processing machine, allowing them to chew tough 00:19:12.049 --> 00:19:14.190 vegetation that other animals couldn't handle. 00:19:14.670 --> 00:19:16.170 I want to get a little technical for a minute. 00:19:16.470 --> 00:19:18.789 We have listeners who really love the details. 00:19:19.289 --> 00:19:21.990 And the critique of our earlier discussions was 00:19:21.990 --> 00:19:25.930 that we skimmed over the why. Let's do it. In 00:19:25.930 --> 00:19:27.950 the notes, there's mention of the pectoral crest 00:19:27.950 --> 00:19:30.890 and the supracetabular crest. Why are we talking 00:19:30.890 --> 00:19:32.569 about these bumps in the bones? Why do they matter 00:19:32.569 --> 00:19:34.990 so much? This is where the detective work of 00:19:34.990 --> 00:19:37.130 paleontology happens. Remember, we don't have 00:19:37.130 --> 00:19:39.589 a skull. Usually the skull is how you tell species 00:19:39.589 --> 00:19:41.789 apart. It's the easiest way. Oh, this one has 00:19:41.789 --> 00:19:44.049 a horn here. This one has a crest there. It's 00:19:44.049 --> 00:19:46.730 the face. It's distinctive. Exactly. Without 00:19:46.730 --> 00:19:49.309 a skull, you have to look at the minute details 00:19:49.309 --> 00:19:52.750 of the postcranial skeleton, the body. These 00:19:52.750 --> 00:19:55.309 little bumps and ridges called apomorphies are 00:19:55.309 --> 00:19:57.730 the unique features that define a species. Okay, 00:19:57.769 --> 00:19:59.890 so what makes Hedrosaurus unique? Why isn't it 00:19:59.890 --> 00:20:02.480 just a Gryposaurus without a head? Albert Prieto 00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:05.480 Marquez, a leading expert on these animals, identified 00:20:05.480 --> 00:20:08.920 specific features in a 2011 study. For instance, 00:20:08.980 --> 00:20:11.819 on the humerus, the upper arm bone, there is 00:20:11.819 --> 00:20:14.380 a ridge called the pectoral crest. This is where 00:20:14.380 --> 00:20:17.460 the chest muscles attach. In Hadrosaurus, this 00:20:17.460 --> 00:20:20.359 crest is shortened. It's slightly over 40 % of 00:20:20.359 --> 00:20:23.079 the total humeral length. That is incredibly 00:20:23.079 --> 00:20:25.880 specific. It has to be. And the delta pectoral 00:20:25.880 --> 00:20:28.319 crest, which is part of that structure, is developed 00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:30.220 from the humeral shaft in a way that creates 00:20:30.220 --> 00:20:33.119 a broad lateral facet. Basically, the muscle 00:20:33.119 --> 00:20:35.099 attachment points are shaped differently than 00:20:35.099 --> 00:20:38.079 in its cousins. It suggests a different musculature. 00:20:38.259 --> 00:20:40.059 And the hip. You mentioned the hip. Then you 00:20:40.059 --> 00:20:42.579 look at the ilium, the top hip bone. There's 00:20:42.579 --> 00:20:44.740 a feature called... the supra acetabular crest 00:20:44.740 --> 00:20:47.180 which is a shelf of bone above the hip socket 00:20:47.180 --> 00:20:49.980 in hadrosaurus the highest point of this crest 00:20:49.980 --> 00:20:52.720 is lower than in other species and the crest 00:20:52.720 --> 00:20:55.660 itself is shortened from front to rear so to 00:20:55.660 --> 00:20:58.660 the untrained eye it's just a bumpy bone but 00:20:58.660 --> 00:21:01.720 to an expert these bumps are a fingerprint exactly 00:21:01.720 --> 00:21:04.500 these minute details are the only reason we can 00:21:04.500 --> 00:21:07.450 say this is hadrosaurus full key And not just 00:21:07.450 --> 00:21:10.589 some generic duck -billed dinosaur. They are 00:21:10.589 --> 00:21:12.430 the clues that prove it's a distinct species, 00:21:12.710 --> 00:21:15.089 which becomes incredibly important later on. 00:21:15.289 --> 00:21:18.589 And that leads us perfectly into the drama. Because 00:21:18.589 --> 00:21:20.630 for a long time, those clues weren't considered 00:21:20.630 --> 00:21:24.089 good enough. We enter the classification crisis. 00:21:24.309 --> 00:21:28.630 Yes, the Nomen Dubium era. Nomen Dubium. Sounds 00:21:28.630 --> 00:21:30.150 like a Harry Potter spell, but it's actually 00:21:30.150 --> 00:21:32.390 a pretty harsh insult in the scientific world, 00:21:32.450 --> 00:21:34.759 isn't it? It is. It is the Latin for dubious 00:21:34.759 --> 00:21:37.019 name. Essentially, it means the name is based 00:21:37.019 --> 00:21:39.519 on fossil material that is too incomplete or 00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:42.079 nondescript to be considered scientifically useful. 00:21:42.339 --> 00:21:44.259 It's basically being erased from the books. It's 00:21:44.259 --> 00:21:46.880 being put in a taxonomic penalty box. You can't 00:21:46.880 --> 00:21:48.480 use it for classification because you can't be 00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:51.099 sure what it is. How did Hadrosaurus, the first 00:21:51.099 --> 00:21:53.819 mounted dinosaur, the animal that started it 00:21:53.819 --> 00:21:57.559 all, end up being dubious? Because the type specimen 00:21:57.559 --> 00:22:00.660 the original skeleton folk found lacked a skull. 00:22:01.079 --> 00:22:03.859 Many 20th century paleontologists argued that 00:22:03.859 --> 00:22:06.480 you couldn't tell Hadrosaurus apart from other 00:22:06.480 --> 00:22:09.240 hadrosaurs based only on the body bones. They 00:22:09.240 --> 00:22:11.200 thought the body bones were too generic across 00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:13.599 the group. They were saying, without a head, 00:22:13.619 --> 00:22:15.900 it's just a bag of bones. We can't prove it's 00:22:15.900 --> 00:22:19.029 its own species. Correct. They argued it was 00:22:19.029 --> 00:22:21.869 too incomplete to compare definitively to other 00:22:21.869 --> 00:22:24.009 hadrosaurs, which were being discovered with 00:22:24.009 --> 00:22:27.470 beautiful, complete skulls out west. So for decades, 00:22:27.630 --> 00:22:29.670 the most famous dinosaur in New Jersey, the first 00:22:29.670 --> 00:22:32.089 mounted skeleton in the world, was technically 00:22:32.089 --> 00:22:35.309 considered a dubious species. Not a ghost. It 00:22:35.309 --> 00:22:37.670 was a ghost in the taxonomy books. A historical 00:22:37.670 --> 00:22:40.049 footnote, but not a valid scientific entity. 00:22:40.410 --> 00:22:42.869 That's tragic. It's like saying the Model T isn't 00:22:42.869 --> 00:22:44.569 a real car because we lost the hood ornament. 00:22:44.710 --> 00:22:47.309 It was a very strict interpretation of the rules 00:22:47.309 --> 00:22:50.730 of nomenclature. But science evolves, technology 00:22:50.730 --> 00:22:54.109 evolves, our understanding evolves. In 2011, 00:22:54.250 --> 00:22:56.450 there was that major re -evaluation we touched 00:22:56.450 --> 00:22:59.430 on. Redemption. The 2011 study by Pretam or Marquez 00:22:59.430 --> 00:23:01.289 looked at those specific characteristics we just 00:23:01.289 --> 00:23:04.750 mentioned. The robust limbs, the specific shape 00:23:04.750 --> 00:23:08.269 of the ilium and crests. Using modern comparative 00:23:08.269 --> 00:23:10.589 techniques, the researchers concluded that these 00:23:10.589 --> 00:23:12.650 traits were unique enough to distinguish it, 00:23:12.730 --> 00:23:15.450 even without a head. So the fingerprint was finally 00:23:15.450 --> 00:23:19.250 legible. Exactly. Hadrosaurus fulci was reinstated 00:23:19.250 --> 00:23:21.990 as a valid taxon. It is no longer nomen dubium. 00:23:22.109 --> 00:23:24.529 It is the real deal. But the drama didn't end 00:23:24.529 --> 00:23:27.029 there. There was a whole family tree shuffle, 00:23:27.210 --> 00:23:29.450 right? This part gets a little complex, so walk 00:23:29.450 --> 00:23:31.970 us through it slowly. Oh, the taxonomy of duck 00:23:31.970 --> 00:23:34.470 -billed dinosaurs is a battlefield. It's constantly 00:23:34.470 --> 00:23:37.569 changing. Okay, so Hadrosaurus is the type genus 00:23:37.569 --> 00:23:39.750 for the family Hadrosauridae. That means the 00:23:39.750 --> 00:23:41.910 whole family is named after it. Right, like how 00:23:41.910 --> 00:23:43.829 the Smith family is named after a Smith. It's 00:23:43.829 --> 00:23:46.619 the original. Exactly. Traditionally, the family 00:23:46.619 --> 00:23:49.460 was split into two subfamilies, Hedrosaurinae, 00:23:49.579 --> 00:23:51.599 which were the ones largely without big hollow 00:23:51.599 --> 00:23:54.339 crests on their heads, and Lambiosaurinae, the 00:23:54.339 --> 00:23:57.000 ones with the big hollow trombone -like crests. 00:23:57.000 --> 00:23:59.640 Like Parasaurolophus. The classic example. So 00:23:59.640 --> 00:24:02.579 Hedrosaurus obviously belonged to the non -crested 00:24:02.579 --> 00:24:05.039 group Hedrosaurinae. It was their namesake. Makes 00:24:05.039 --> 00:24:07.319 sense. It's the original Hedrosaurian. But in 00:24:07.319 --> 00:24:10.299 2008, studies using cladistics, which is a more 00:24:10.299 --> 00:24:12.799 rigorous computer -based method of building family 00:24:12.799 --> 00:24:16.119 trees, showed something surprising. Adresaurus 00:24:16.119 --> 00:24:18.380 turned out to be more primitive than the other 00:24:18.380 --> 00:24:20.579 members of its own subfamily. Primitive here 00:24:20.579 --> 00:24:25.279 meaning simpler or just older. In cladistics, 00:24:25.400 --> 00:24:28.319 it means basil. It branched off earlier in the 00:24:28.319 --> 00:24:30.710 evolutionary tree. It wasn't actually a close 00:24:30.710 --> 00:24:33.809 relative of the classic Hedrosaurians like Edmontosaurus 00:24:33.809 --> 00:24:36.930 or Serolophus. It was a distant cousin that split 00:24:36.930 --> 00:24:39.130 off way back at the beginning of the lineage. 00:24:39.390 --> 00:24:42.289 So it was the odd one out in its own club. Precisely. 00:24:42.289 --> 00:24:45.390 This caused a nomenclature crisis. If Hedrosaurus 00:24:45.390 --> 00:24:47.549 isn't closely related to the other Hedrosaurians, 00:24:47.609 --> 00:24:49.730 you can't keep calling them Hedrosaurians. Because 00:24:49.730 --> 00:24:52.170 in taxonomy, a group has to include its namesake. 00:24:52.170 --> 00:24:54.619 It's a fundamental rule. So what happened? They 00:24:54.619 --> 00:24:57.000 couldn't just ignore it? No, they had to redefine 00:24:57.000 --> 00:24:59.660 the groups. The name Hadrosaurinae was restricted 00:24:59.660 --> 00:25:02.900 to contain only Hadrosaurus, just him, sitting 00:25:02.900 --> 00:25:05.420 alone in his VIP section. So it's a subfamily 00:25:05.420 --> 00:25:09.240 of one. Lonely. Very lonely. And the massive 00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:11.480 group formerly known as Hadrosaurians, all those 00:25:11.480 --> 00:25:14.119 famous non -crested ducks like Edmontosaurus 00:25:14.119 --> 00:25:18.380 and Myosora, was renamed Sorolophinae. Wow. So 00:25:18.380 --> 00:25:21.000 because this one headless skeleton from New Jersey 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:24.059 was so unique and primitive, it forced scientists 00:25:24.059 --> 00:25:26.579 to rename a huge chunk of the dinosaur family 00:25:26.579 --> 00:25:28.779 tree. It highlights the fluidity of science. 00:25:29.119 --> 00:25:32.339 A single fossil, analyzed with new methods, can 00:25:32.339 --> 00:25:35.319 rewrite the textbooks. Current cladograms place 00:25:35.319 --> 00:25:37.740 Hedrosaurus right at the split, right before 00:25:37.740 --> 00:25:40.759 the family divides into the solid -crested sorolophines 00:25:40.759 --> 00:25:43.440 and the hollow -crested lambiosaurians. It's 00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:45.960 the grandfather at the fork in the road. I want 00:25:45.960 --> 00:25:47.559 to pivot to something that makes this animal 00:25:47.559 --> 00:25:50.160 feel incredibly real to me. We've talked about 00:25:50.160 --> 00:25:52.599 bones and names and Latin. Let's talk about its 00:25:52.599 --> 00:25:56.039 health, specifically the 2003 study on tumors. 00:25:56.259 --> 00:25:58.339 This is a fascinating piece of paleobiology. 00:25:58.500 --> 00:26:01.140 In 2003, Bruce Rothschild and his colleagues 00:26:01.140 --> 00:26:03.960 performed a massive screening of dinosaur vertebrae. 00:26:03.980 --> 00:26:06.019 How massive? What kind of numbers are we talking? 00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:09.279 They scanned over 10 ,000 fossils from multiple 00:26:09.279 --> 00:26:12.720 museums. Wow. That's a huge sample size. It is. 00:26:12.819 --> 00:26:16.000 They used CT scans and fluoroscopes, modern medical 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:18.539 imaging, to look inside the bones without having 00:26:18.539 --> 00:26:20.640 to cut them open. And they were looking for evidence 00:26:20.640 --> 00:26:22.859 of tumors and cancer. And what did they find 00:26:22.859 --> 00:26:25.859 in Hadrosaurus? They found them. The study identified 00:26:25.859 --> 00:26:28.619 hemangiomas, which are benign tumors of blood 00:26:28.619 --> 00:26:32.059 vessels, desmoplastic fibroma, metastatic cancer, 00:26:32.339 --> 00:26:35.400 and osteoblastoma. These are real, recognizable 00:26:35.400 --> 00:26:38.930 diseases. Metastatic cancer. That's serious. 00:26:39.230 --> 00:26:41.269 That means it started somewhere else and spread 00:26:41.269 --> 00:26:44.250 to the bone. It is. And here is the surprise. 00:26:44.450 --> 00:26:47.369 These tumors were almost exclusively found in 00:26:47.369 --> 00:26:50.109 Hadrosaurus and other Hadrosaurids like Brachylophosaurus 00:26:50.109 --> 00:26:53.089 and Edmontosaurus. They were not found in other 00:26:53.089 --> 00:26:55.509 dinosaur groups included in the study, like the 00:26:55.509 --> 00:26:58.230 horned dinosaurs or the stegosaurs. That is wild. 00:26:58.450 --> 00:27:00.970 So the duck -billed dinosaurs were uniquely susceptible 00:27:00.970 --> 00:27:04.319 to cancer. It seems so. The statistics are overwhelming. 00:27:04.660 --> 00:27:06.839 And specifically, the tumors were only found 00:27:06.839 --> 00:27:09.500 on the caudal vertebrae, the tail bones. Only 00:27:09.500 --> 00:27:11.960 the tail, not the legs, not the back. Only the 00:27:11.960 --> 00:27:14.299 tail. That's the part that is so strange. Why? 00:27:14.839 --> 00:27:17.740 Why the tail? That is the big question. Was it 00:27:17.740 --> 00:27:19.980 genetic? Was it something in their environment? 00:27:20.039 --> 00:27:22.160 Some researchers speculate about environmental 00:27:22.160 --> 00:27:25.140 factors. Maybe they were eating a specific plant 00:27:25.140 --> 00:27:27.720 that had carcinogenic properties. Or maybe their 00:27:27.720 --> 00:27:30.440 tails were subject to repeated stress or trauma 00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:33.019 that made them vulnerable. We just don't know. 00:27:33.160 --> 00:27:35.579 It's incredibly humanizing, if you can say that 00:27:35.579 --> 00:27:38.700 about a reptile, to think of these animals dealing 00:27:38.700 --> 00:27:41.259 with illness. It's not just a monster roaring. 00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:43.660 It's an animal that might have had a sore tail 00:27:43.660 --> 00:27:46.500 or a chronic painful condition. It reminds us 00:27:46.500 --> 00:27:49.240 that they were biological organisms subject to 00:27:49.240 --> 00:27:51.339 the same pathologies that affect life today. 00:27:51.519 --> 00:27:54.180 It bridges that 80 million year gap. You look 00:27:54.180 --> 00:27:56.259 at that bone, you see the tumor, and you think, 00:27:56.299 --> 00:27:59.180 ouch, I know what that feels like. Speaking of 00:27:59.180 --> 00:28:01.769 environment, let's set the scene. Where was Hadrosaurus 00:28:01.769 --> 00:28:04.170 living? And I don't just mean New Jersey, because 00:28:04.170 --> 00:28:06.130 New Jersey looked very different back then. Very, 00:28:06.130 --> 00:28:08.170 very different. We are in the late Cretaceous, 00:28:08.190 --> 00:28:10.589 specifically the companion stage. Radiometric 00:28:10.589 --> 00:28:13.309 dating of bivalve shells from the formation places 00:28:13.309 --> 00:28:17.029 this between roughly 83 .6 and 77 .9 million 00:28:17.029 --> 00:28:20.410 years ago. So no T. rex yet? Not yet. T. rex 00:28:20.410 --> 00:28:22.769 is a bit later, at the very end of the Cretaceous, 00:28:22.769 --> 00:28:25.390 in the Maastrichtion. Hadrosaurus is living in 00:28:25.390 --> 00:28:27.750 what is now the Woodbury Formation and possibly 00:28:27.750 --> 00:28:30.230 the Tarheel -Coachman Formations further south. 00:28:30.650 --> 00:28:32.670 But the fossil was found in marine sediment. 00:28:33.329 --> 00:28:35.650 You mentioned earlier that Marl is basically 00:28:35.650 --> 00:28:39.109 ancient seafloor. Was Hadrosaurus swimming? Was 00:28:39.109 --> 00:28:41.529 it an aquatic dinosaur? That was an old theory 00:28:41.529 --> 00:28:43.789 for a while, wasn't it? It was, based partly 00:28:43.789 --> 00:28:46.309 on their broad, duck -like snouts and flattened 00:28:46.309 --> 00:28:49.190 tails. But no, Hadrosaurus was a land animal. 00:28:49.289 --> 00:28:51.670 It lived in coastal forests and floodplains. 00:28:51.829 --> 00:28:53.750 The fact that it was found in marine sediment 00:28:53.750 --> 00:28:56.910 is a classic case of what taphonomists call bloat 00:28:56.910 --> 00:28:59.089 and float. Oh, lovely image. Explain that for 00:28:59.089 --> 00:29:01.670 us. It's exactly what it sounds like. The animal 00:29:01.670 --> 00:29:04.549 likely died near a river or on a coast. The carcass 00:29:04.549 --> 00:29:07.609 began to decompose. As bacteria in the gut break 00:29:07.609 --> 00:29:10.569 down the soft tissue, they produce gases. The 00:29:10.569 --> 00:29:12.829 body bloats up like a balloon. And it becomes 00:29:12.829 --> 00:29:15.359 a balloon. a three -ton balloon. It gets picked 00:29:15.359 --> 00:29:17.299 up by the river current, washed out to sea, and 00:29:17.299 --> 00:29:20.220 it floats. It can float for days or weeks. Eventually, 00:29:20.259 --> 00:29:22.519 the gases escape or the body is torn apart by 00:29:22.519 --> 00:29:24.500 scavengers and it sinks to the bottom of the 00:29:24.500 --> 00:29:26.940 ocean. And that explains why we have the bones 00:29:26.940 --> 00:29:30.420 we have, the disarticulation. Exactly. As the 00:29:30.420 --> 00:29:32.779 body decayed and fell apart, some pieces dropped 00:29:32.779 --> 00:29:35.539 off earlier. Maybe the head fell off first as 00:29:35.539 --> 00:29:38.259 it's attached by a relatively thin neck or was 00:29:38.259 --> 00:29:41.420 scavenged by a shark. The rest of the torso sank 00:29:41.420 --> 00:29:44.150 later. That explains why we have this specific 00:29:44.150 --> 00:29:47.410 mix of limbs and vertebrae, but no skull. So 00:29:47.410 --> 00:29:50.230 it was buried. It was buried in the silty mud 00:29:50.230 --> 00:29:53.150 of the seafloor, which became the marl that Hopkins 00:29:53.150 --> 00:29:55.869 was digging up 80 million years later. It's amazing 00:29:55.869 --> 00:29:57.630 to think that a creature that walked through 00:29:57.630 --> 00:30:01.029 forests ended up buried with seashells. It gives 00:30:01.029 --> 00:30:03.410 us a snapshot of the geography. The east coast 00:30:03.410 --> 00:30:05.670 of North America was very different than higher 00:30:05.670 --> 00:30:08.250 sea levels, different coastlines. It was a lush 00:30:08.250 --> 00:30:10.630 subtropical environment, not unlike the Gulf 00:30:10.630 --> 00:30:13.130 Coast today. Let's jump forward to the present 00:30:13.130 --> 00:30:15.970 day. Hadrosaurus has had a bit of a renaissance 00:30:15.970 --> 00:30:18.109 in pop culture, at least in his home state. It 00:30:18.109 --> 00:30:21.309 has. In 1991, Hadrosaurus fulci was designated 00:30:21.309 --> 00:30:24.069 the official state dinosaur of New Jersey. And 00:30:24.069 --> 00:30:26.190 this wasn't just politicians deciding to be cool. 00:30:26.349 --> 00:30:28.670 This was a grassroots movement. A grassroots 00:30:28.670 --> 00:30:31.769 movement of children. It was initiated by a teacher 00:30:31.769 --> 00:30:34.089 named Joyce Berry and her fourth grade classes 00:30:34.089 --> 00:30:37.769 at Strawbridge Elementary School. From 1988 to 00:30:37.769 --> 00:30:41.319 1991, these kids lobbied. wrote letters to their 00:30:41.319 --> 00:30:43.539 legislators, and pushed for the designation. 00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:47.099 I love that. Fourth graders changing state law 00:30:47.099 --> 00:30:50.160 to honor a dinosaur. It shows that you don't 00:30:50.160 --> 00:30:52.740 have to be a PhD to care about this stuff or 00:30:52.740 --> 00:30:54.759 to make a difference. It demonstrates the power 00:30:54.759 --> 00:30:56.819 of civic engagement and the universal appeal 00:30:56.819 --> 00:31:00.460 of dinosaurs. And now there is a statue sculpted 00:31:00.460 --> 00:31:02.420 by John Giannotti standing right in downtown 00:31:02.420 --> 00:31:04.960 Haddonfield near the discovery site. A tribute 00:31:04.960 --> 00:31:07.319 to their local monster. It is. It's a great statue. 00:31:07.380 --> 00:31:09.640 It's about eight feet tall, not quite full size, 00:31:09.740 --> 00:31:11.680 but it captures the spirit. It's a real point 00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:13.819 of pride for the town. And what about the bones 00:31:13.819 --> 00:31:16.490 themselves? The real deal. Do we see them? Usually 00:31:16.490 --> 00:31:18.609 the original holotype skeleton is kept in the 00:31:18.609 --> 00:31:20.670 collections at the Academy of Natural Sciences 00:31:20.670 --> 00:31:22.750 in Philadelphia, mostly out of sight to protect 00:31:22.750 --> 00:31:25.369 it. It's very fragile. Bones from these marl 00:31:25.369 --> 00:31:27.490 pits can suffer from pyrite disease, what they 00:31:27.490 --> 00:31:30.430 call fossil rot, where minerals in the bone react 00:31:30.430 --> 00:31:32.730 with humidity and cause it to crumble. So they 00:31:32.730 --> 00:31:33.869 have to keep it in a controlled environment. 00:31:34.130 --> 00:31:36.460 Exactly. But they have let it out occasionally. 00:31:36.940 --> 00:31:40.579 There was a major exhibit from 2008 to 2009 called 00:31:40.579 --> 00:31:43.259 Hadrosaurus, the dinosaur that changed the world, 00:31:43.400 --> 00:31:46.200 where a fully assembled cast and an exhibit on 00:31:46.200 --> 00:31:48.200 the history were open to the public. It was a 00:31:48.200 --> 00:31:50.279 huge hit. So even if you can't see the original 00:31:50.279 --> 00:31:53.039 bones, the legacy is everywhere. Every time you 00:31:53.039 --> 00:31:55.859 see a mounted dinosaur in a museum anywhere in 00:31:55.859 --> 00:31:58.500 the world, you are looking at the legacy of Hedrosaurus. 00:31:58.559 --> 00:32:00.960 It's the one that started it all. So let's wrap 00:32:00.960 --> 00:32:03.759 this up. We've gone from a moral pit in 1838 00:32:03.759 --> 00:32:07.200 to a state symbol in 1991. We've talked about 00:32:07.200 --> 00:32:10.420 anatomy, cancer, and taxonomy wars. What does 00:32:10.420 --> 00:32:13.109 this all mean? Hadrastaurus is the ultimate example 00:32:13.109 --> 00:32:15.109 of how science works. It's not a straight line. 00:32:15.329 --> 00:32:18.329 It starts with Creosity Hopkins and Folk. It 00:32:18.329 --> 00:32:20.430 moves to Hypothesis Lighty, saying it stands 00:32:20.430 --> 00:32:23.750 like a kangaroo. It goes through skepticism and 00:32:23.750 --> 00:32:26.750 revision, the Nomen Dubium era where everyone 00:32:26.750 --> 00:32:29.289 doubted it. And it arrives at refinement. Exactly. 00:32:29.690 --> 00:32:32.349 Modern technology revealing cancer and cladistics 00:32:32.349 --> 00:32:34.950 revealing its true place in the family tree. 00:32:35.170 --> 00:32:37.630 It's a process of constant questioning. It's 00:32:37.630 --> 00:32:40.220 a survivor. It survived the Cretaceous, it survived 00:32:40.220 --> 00:32:42.619 the Marl Pit, it survived the Civil War delays, 00:32:42.859 --> 00:32:46.059 and it survived the taxonomy wars. And it taught 00:32:46.059 --> 00:32:48.319 us that dinosaurs were not just lizards, they 00:32:48.319 --> 00:32:51.200 were something else. Something grander, more 00:32:51.200 --> 00:32:54.779 dynamic, and ultimately more interesting. Here's 00:32:54.779 --> 00:32:56.240 a final thought for you to chew on, listeners. 00:32:56.900 --> 00:32:58.880 Hadrosaurus is one of the most famous dinosaurs 00:32:58.880 --> 00:33:01.680 in history, yet we still don't have its skull. 00:33:02.240 --> 00:33:04.720 We have a statue in Haddonfield, we have mounts 00:33:04.720 --> 00:33:07.920 in museums, and they all have heads. But those 00:33:07.920 --> 00:33:11.119 heads are educated guesses based on other animals. 00:33:11.299 --> 00:33:13.420 It raises a provocative question, doesn't it? 00:33:13.460 --> 00:33:15.700 Exactly. When you walk through a museum and look 00:33:15.700 --> 00:33:17.900 at those towering skeletons, how much of what 00:33:17.900 --> 00:33:20.900 you are seeing is hard fossil evidence? And how 00:33:20.900 --> 00:33:23.339 much is plaster, sculpture, and imagination filling 00:33:23.339 --> 00:33:25.740 in the blanks? How much is science? And how much 00:33:25.740 --> 00:33:28.720 is art? How many other facts about the prehistoric 00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:31.559 world are actually just composites waiting for 00:33:31.559 --> 00:33:34.519 a 2011 -style study to overturn them? It encourages 00:33:34.519 --> 00:33:37.240 us to keep asking questions. assume we know the 00:33:37.240 --> 00:33:39.220 whole story next time you look at a dinosaur 00:33:39.220 --> 00:33:43.660 statue look a little closer ask yourself is that 00:33:43.660 --> 00:33:47.680 real or is that the artist talking thanks for 00:33:47.680 --> 00:33:49.579 diving deep with us today keep digging see you 00:33:49.579 --> 00:33:49.940 next time