Dinosaurs Without Bones (68 page)

p. 339
“Elephants consist of three species: the African bush elephant (
Loxodonta africana
), African savannah elephant (
L. cyclotis
), and Indian elephant (
Elephas maximus
).” Roca, A.L., Georgiadis, N., Pecon-Slattery, J., and O’Brien, S.J. 2001. Genetic evidence for two species of elephant in Africa.
Science
, 293: 1473-1477.

p. 339
“Thanks to fossil trackways recently discovered in the United Arab Emirates which show a series of parallel and overlapping tracks (group behavior) crossed by one trackway (a lone male)… .” Bibi, F., Kraatz, B., Craig, N., Beech, M., Schuster, M., and Hill, A. 2012. Early evidence for complex social structure in Proboscidea from a late Miocene trackway site in the United Arab Emirates.
Biology Letters
, 23: 670-673.

p. 339
“Elephant trails can also form depressions deep enough for water to flow along them, creating canals that connect previously isolated rivers or ponds.” Mosepele, K., Moyle, P.B., Merron, G.S., Purkey, D.R., and Mosepele, B. 2009. Fish, floods, and ecosystem engineers: aquatic conservation in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.
BioScience
, 59: 53-64.

p. 340
“In a study by geologist Daniel DeoCampo published in 2002, he documented how hippos in Tanzania… .” DeoCampo, D.M. 2002. Sedimentary structures generated by
Hippopotamus amphibius
in a lake-margin wetland, Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.
Palaios
, 17: 212-217.

p. 340
“This channelization via hippo traces, in which their trails eventually turn into new river channels, is also well documented in the Okavango Delta of Botswana.” McCarthy, T.S., Ellery, W.N., and Bloem, A. 1998. Some observations on the geomorphological impact of hippopotamus (
Hippopotamus amphibious
L.) in the Okavango Delta, Botswana:
African Journal of Ecology
, 36: 44-56.

p. 340
“In this respect, in 2006, two geologists—Lawrence Jones and Edmund Gustason—did indeed propose that avulsion features in the Morrison Formation of east-central Utah were likely caused by sauropod trails that created ‘channels’ for the flow of floodwaters.” Jones, L.J., and Gustason, E.R. 2006. Dinosaurs as possible avulsion enablers in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, east-central Utah.
Ichnos
, 13: 31-41.

p. 341
“These rivers include the Nile in eastern Africa, the Amazon of South America, the Macleay and Murrumbidgee of Australia, and the Colorado River of the western U.S., among others.” Here are a few references on the antiquity of river valleys, and how at least parts of their original drainage systems might have coincided with a dinosaurian presence: (1) Gani, N.D, Abdelsalam, M.G., Gera, S., and Gani, M.R. 2009. Stratigraphic and structural evolution of the Blue Nile Basin, northwestern Ethiopian Plateau.
Geological Journal
, 44: 30-56. (2) Potter, P.E. 1990. The Mesozoic and Cenozoic paleodrainage of South America: a natural history.
Journal of South American Earth Sciences
, 10: 331-344. (3) Oilier, C.D. 1982. The Great Escarpment of eastern Australia: tectonic and geomorphic significance.
Journal of the Geological
Society of Australia
, 29: 13-23. (4) Flowers, R.M., and Farley, K.A. 2012. Apatite
4
He/
3
He and (U-Th)/He evidence for an ancient Grand Canyon.
Science
, 338: 1616-1619.

p. 341
“
If sauropods were as wary as elephants in negotiating sloping terrain, they would naturally have tended to walk on the lower and safer ground.
…” Quoted verbatim from Thulborn (2012).

p. 342
“But geologists actually apply these two words to different mass movements of earth material… .” Clague, J.J., and Stead, D. 2012.
Landslides: Types, Mechanisms and Modeling
. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.: 429 p.

p. 342
“In an article by geologist David Loope published in 2006, he showed how Early Jurassic dinosaurs caused sand-dune surfaces to collapse as they walked across them.” Loope, D.B. 2006. Dry-season tracks in dinosaur-generated grainflows.
Palaios
, 21: 132-142.

p. 343
“Perhaps the most surprising conclusion of his investigation was that many of the dinosaur tracks had been made on dry sand, which was always regarded as a poor medium for preserving tracks.” Loope (2006).

p. 343
“Other geologists had reckoned that the climate for that area during the Early Jurassic was monsoonal, so Loope figured that the tracks were made and preserved during the dry season, which was likely in the winter.” Loope (2006).

p. 343
“This sort of movement is called
grainflow
, in which sand grains flow as if they are in water, but in this instance are cushioned by air between the grains.” Lowe, D.R. 1976. Grain flow and grain flow deposits.
Journal of Sedimentary Petrology
, 46: 188-199.

p. 344
“In cross-sections of the sandstone, Loope found theropod and prosauropod tracks directly associated with grainflows… .” Loope (2006).

p. 345
“High concentrations of dinosaur eggs elsewhere in the world, such as in South Africa, Spain, and India… .” Carpenter, K. 2000.
Eggs, Nests, and Baby Dinosaurs: A Look at Dinosaur Reproduction
. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana: 352 p.

p. 345
“In some instances, birds in breeding colonies, such as Australasian gannets (
Morus serrator
)… .” Wingham, E.J. 1984. Breeding biology of the Australasian Gannet
Morus serrator
(Gray) at Motu Karamarama, Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand. I. The egg.
Emu
, 84: 129-136.

p. 346
“In an article published in 2012, Jenni Scott, Robin Renaut, and Bernhart Owen described the terrain-altering effects of flamingo nesting grounds… .” Scott, J.E., Renaut, R.W., and Owen, R.B. 2012. Impacts of flamingos on saline lake margin and shallow lacustrine sediments in the Kenya Rift Valley.
Sedimentary Geology
, 277: 32-51.

p. 346
“Flamingos mine the lakeshore mud, which they do by dragging it
with their beaks or scooping up mud in their bills and spitting it onto the nest.” Scott
et al.
(2012).

p. 347
“Jack Horner originally proposed that the Late Cretaceous hadrosaur
Maiasaura
of Montana may have had nesting colonies… .” (1) Horner and Makela (1979). (2) Horner (1982).

p. 347
“Near the
Maiasaura
nests are
Troodon
nests, which are rimmed, bowllike depressions that outwardly resemble flamingo nests.” Varricchio
et al.
(1999).

p. 347
“How about the recently extinct mound-nesting birds of New Caledonia,
Sylviornis neocaledoniae
and
Megapodius molistructor
, which made mound nests so big that archaeologists at first mistook these for human burial mounds?” Hansell (2004).

p. 348
“In at least one recent documentary (
Dinosaur Revolution
, 2011),
Tyrannosaurus rex
was depicted as a mound nester with an accordingly huge mound for its eggs.” The tyrannosaur mound-nesting scenes were in Episode 4 (“End Game”) of the
Dinosaur Revolution
series.

p. 349
“For example, in humans, a flatus produced by swallowed air that made its way through the digestive tract… .” Suarez, F., Furne, J., Springfield, J., and Levitt, M. 1997. Insights into human colonic physiology obtained from the study of flatus composition.
American Journal of Physiology: Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology
, 272: G1028-G1032.

p. 349
“Most of the unpleasant smells we associate with flatulence come from sulfurous gases, such as hydrogen sulfide (H
2
S).” Suarez, F.L., Springfield, J., and Levitt, M.D. 1998. Identification of gases responsible for the odour of human flatus and evaluation of a device purported to reduce this odour.
Gut
, 43: 100-104.

p. 350
“As everyone now knows (with the exception of a few billionaires), the overproduction of certain gases … has insulating qualities in our atmosphere… .” Shortly after I wrote this sentence, the latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report (2013) on global-climate change, titled
Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis
, confirmed a 95% certainty that this change was human-caused, and this is agreed upon by about 97% of climatologists. For those who say we need to “teach the controversy” and “let’s hear both sides of the issue,” there is no controversy, and there is no other side.

p. 350
“Although carbon dioxide is often vilified for its role in climate change, methane in smaller concentrations has a greater impact… .” Howarth, R.W., Santoro, R., and Ingraffea, A. 2011. Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations.
Climatic Change
, 106: 679-690.

p. 350
“In a 2012 paper, three scientists—David Wilkinson, Euan Nisbet, and Graeme Ruxton—asked themselves this: Did dinosaur-produced
methane contribute to global warming?” Wilkinson, D.M., Nisbet, E.G., and Ruxton, G.D. 2012. Could methane produced by sauropod dinosaurs have helped drive Mesozoic climate warmth?
Current Biology
, 22: R292-R293.

p. 351
“Instead, it was warm throughout almost its entire 185 million years, from the start of the Triassic Period to the end of the Cretaceous Period.” Price, G.D., Twitchett, R.J., Wheeley, J.R., and Giuseppi, B. 2013. Isotopic evidence for long term warmth in the Mesozoic.
Nature Scientific Reports
3, 1438: doi:10.1038/srep01438

p. 351
“For instance, the jury is still out on whether or not some herbivorous dinosaurs … used fermentation in their hindguts to digest their food.” (1) Farlow, J.O. 1987. Speculations about the diet and digestive physiology of herbivorous dinosaurs.
Paleobiology
, 13: 60-72. (2) Hummel, J., and Clauss, M. 2011. Sauropod feeding and digestive physiology.
In
Klein, N., Remes, K., and Gee, C. 2011.
Biology of the Sauropod Dinosaurs: Understanding the Life of Giants
. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana: 11-33.

p. 351
“Many modern animals, from termites to cattle, have this symbiotic relationship… .” (1) Brune, A., and Ohkuma, M. 2011. Role of the termite gut microflora in symbiotic digestion.
In
Bignell, D.E., Roisin, Y., and Lo, N. (editors),
Biology of Termites: A Modern Synthesis
. Springer, Berlin: 439-475.

p. 351
“In this instance, the rarity of gastroliths in most herbivorous dinosaurs is now regarded as a good reason to think that sauropods and other hefty herbivores used hindgut fermentation.” Wings and Sander (2007).

p. 353
“Robert Bakker was the first dinosaur paleontologist to suggest that dinosaur feeding might have ‘invented’ flowering plants (
angiosperms
)… .” Bakker, R.T. 1978. Dinosaur feeding behaviour and the origin of flowering plants.
Nature,
274: 661-663.

p. 353
“Among the first paleobotanists to start examining whether flowering plant and land-dwelling vertebrate evolution went hand in hand (or rather, leaf in mouth) were Scott Wing and Bruce Tiffney.” (1) Wing, S.L., and Tiffney, B.H. 1987a. Interactions of angiosperms and herbivorous tetrapods through time.
In
Friis, E.M., Chaloner, W.G., and Crane, P.R. (editors),
The Origin of Angiosperms and their Biological Consequences.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.: 203-224. (2) Wing, S.L., and Tiffney, B.H. 1987b. The reciprocal relationship of angiosperm evolution and tetrapod herbivory.
Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology,
50: 179-210.

p. 354
“In a 2001 study done by dinosaur paleontologist Paul Barrett and paleoecologist Katherine Willis… .” Barrett, P.B., and Willis, K.J. 2001. Did dinosaurs invent flowers?: dinosaur-angiosperm coevolution revisited.
Biological Reviews
, 76: 411-447.

p. 354
“Similarly, another review done in 2008 by Graeme Lloyd and eight other paleontologists examined how what they called the ‘Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution’… . ” Lloyd, G.T., Davis, K.E., Pisani, D., Tarver, J.E., Ruta, M., Sakamoto, M., Hone, D.W.E., Jennings, R., and Benton, M.J. 2008. Dinosaurs and the Cretaceous terrestrial revolution.
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B
, 275: 2483–2490

p. 356
“Some of these traits might include different root systems… .” Lambers, H., Chapin, F.S., III, and Pons, T.L. 1998.
Plant Physiological Ecology
. Springer, Berlin: 540 p.

p. 356
“As a hint of how dinosaur feces might have affected soils and plants during the Mesozoic, paleoecologists, in a 2013 study done on extinctions of large herbivorous mammals in the Amazon River Basin… .” Doughty, C.E., Wolf, A., and Malhi, Y. 2013. The legacy of the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions on nutrient availability in Amazon soils.
Nature Geoscience
, doi:10.1038/ngeo1895d

p. 357
“Likewise, whenever great poopers die out, one should also mourn for dung beetles, which die with them… .” Johnson, C.N. 2009. Ecological consequences of Late Quaternary extinctions of megafauna.
Proceedings of the Royal Society, B
: 276: 2509-2519.

p. 358
“One of the most surprising results of these reintroductions was how riparian ecosystems in Yellowstone improved, with greater and more vigorous plant growth that approached their recent, pre-colonial state, when wolves naturally inhabited this area.” Ripple, W.J., Beschta, R.L., Fortin, J.K., and Robbins, C.T. 2013. Trophic cascades from wolves to grizzly bears in Yellowstone.
Journal of Animal Ecology
, DOI: 10.1111/1365-2656.12123.

p. 358
“First, with regard to wolves, their favorite item on the menu—one that they will pick nearly every time if given a choice—is elk (
Cervus canadensis
).” Creel, S., Christianson, D., Liley, S., and Winnie, J.A., Jr. 2007. Predation risk affects reproductive physiology and demography of elk.
Science
, 315: 960.