#hesperornithoides

[si-nequal-is]

Tanycolagreus topwilsoni and Hesperornithoides miessleri

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Caihong vs Hesperornithoides

Caihong (left) or Hesperornithoides (right)?

Caihong

Hesperornithoides

Voting ended onMar 9, 2023

Factfiles:

Caihong juji

Artwork by @i-draws-dinosaurs, written by @i-draws-dinosaurs

Name meaning: Rainbow with big crest

Time: 161 million years old (Oxfordian stage of the Late Jurassic)

Location: Tiaojishan Formation, China

It’s always a special treat to hear the announcement of a dinosaur with known colours, because it gives the most direct impression of how truly stunning these animals would have been to witness in real life. And Caihong might just be the most spectacular of them all so far, described in 2018 from an immaculate full-body fossil that preserves detailed feathers! Caihong’s feathers are longer than some other floofy dinosaurs, and would have had the appearance of a luxurious mane along its neck. Not only that, the fossil preserves feather microstructures that in life would have made this dinosaur gloriously iridescent!

Now iridescent dinosaurs aren’t new, Microraptor has been decked out in fabulous starling-esque plumage for a while now, but Caihong absolutely takes it to the next level. Its whole body was covered in iridescent black, including the enormous tail, but the real star of the show are the platelet-like melanosomes found on the head, neck, and the base of the tail. Different from the usual iridescent melanosomes, the structure of these tiny organelles reflects brilliantly iridescent colours, like those on the heads of hummingbirds and particularly the bright purple feathers on the necks of the trumpeter family. Caihong would have put on an absolutely dazzling jewel-toned display in the treetops or on the forest floor of prehistoric China!

Hesperornithoides miessleri

Artwork by Gabriel Ugueto, written by @zygodactylus

Name Meaning: Miessler’s Western Bird Form 

Time: 156 to 147 million years ago (Kimmeridgian to Tithonian stages of the Late Jurassic) 

Location: Jimbo Quarry, Morrison Formation, Wyoming 

Say hello to Lori! Hesperornithoides is a vital newly named dinosaur known from material that had been excavated a few decades ago, taking that long to describe properly. You see, while we have Avialans - “protobirds” - from the Late Jurassic, we don’t have other birdy dinosaurs we’d expect from this time, such as Dromaeosaurs and Troodontids. However, with the description of Lori and other troodons from places like the Morrison, we finally have those missing links! Having more feathered dinosaurs known from times before Archaeopteryx is important for adding more robust evidence to the idea that birds are living dinosaurs - not that we need much after the discovery of the Jehol biota, but, the more evidence the better. At about a meter long and half a meter high, it is possible that Hesperornithoides was a juvenile, and may have gotten at least somewhat bigger. A slender animal with raised sickle claws, like other Troodontids, it would have looked like a small pointy bird in its environment. In fact, Hesperornithoides showcases that we have yet to find everything from the Morrison Formation - it is possible that even more mysteries lie in this interesting and famous extinct ecosystem. Lori lived in a transitional wetland environment, which would have gone through extreme seasonality. As Lori was found in a resting position, it seems that this is where Hesperornithoides lived, rather than just having been preserved there. It probably used its wings to help with predatory behaviors and in display. Its environment, the Morrison Formation, is one of the most diverse dinosaur ecosystems and one of the best known; however, its organization is something of a mess, so it isn’t clear which exact habitats Lori would have been associated with. It is a safe bet to say, however, that it lived alongside dinosaurs similar to Camarasaurus, Camptosaurus, Dryosaurus, Alcovasaurus, Gargoyleosaurus, Hesperosaurus, Stegosaurus, Haplocanthosaurus, Dyslocosaurus, Apatosaurus, Brontosaurus, Barosaurus, Diplodocus, Galeamopus, Supersaurus, Kaatedocus, Allosaurus, Fosterovenator, Coelurus, and Ornitholestes.

DMM Round One Masterpost

[sargassos]

Yesterday was crazy busy, too busy to focus on drawing. So I colored instead! It took a little less focus and was a little more relaxing 😌

This was one of my Dinovember pages. He is smol and has flashy arm fluffs 🪶 Based on sunbitterns

[thedoodlingdino]

Hesperornithoides! So a while back I did an illustration of an unnamed small theropod dinosaur (nicknamed “Lori”) to help raise funds and awareness for research. She got a name yesterday! Check out Hartman et al’s paper describing the new dinosaur: https://peerj.com/articles/7247/

[albertonykus]

A selection of new dinosaurs named in 2019.

[dinodorks]

Discovery of Raptor-Like Dinosaur Adds a New Wrinkle to the Origin of Birds

A small, 150 million-year-old dinosaur unearthed in Wyoming ran on the ground, but it may have been closely related to some of the first fliers

“In 2003, while excavating the enormous bones of a Supersaurus nicknamed “Jimbo,” Wyoming Dinosaur Center paleontologist Bill Wahl spotted something funny. About four inches above the main bone layer, in what was thought to be fossil-free rock that could be chipped away, there lay an accumulation of tiny bones.

At first, Wyoming Dinosaur Center paleontologist Jessica Lippincott says, it seemed like the remains might belong to a flying pterosaur—a non-dinosaur reptile that lived during the same time. But further examination revealed that the bones represent something never seen before: a new species of raptor-like dinosaur, the oldest yet found in North America. “We have the smallest dinosaur and the largest dinosaur found in Wyoming, both in the same quarry,” Lippincott says.

Those bones, representing a partial skeleton, were used to name the new dinosaur Hesperornithoides miessleri today in the journal PeerJ. Described by University of Wisconsin-Madison paleontologist and artist Scott Hartman and colleagues, this dinosaur is categorized as an early member of a group of svelte, small, sickle-clawed dinosaurs known to experts as troodontids. These were raptor-like dinosaurs related to the group that contains more famous carnivores like Velociraptor, as well as the forerunners of birds.”

[esmaniottoart]

Hesperornithoides Sketch_Lori Tunes.

Pencils, 2019.

[jackd983]

New doodles!

Just some smaller dinosaur drawings I did as part of a birthday present for a friend