Overview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN2_rkpyC3g&list=PLXZZmeeofofQ1i6vF225FyjYObwAp4Kr5
Using the link above please watch all 7 parts of Walking with Dinosaurs: Episode 1 New Blood. If you open on YouTube you can find all 7 parts on the right-hand side of the image screen if it doesn't automatically advance to the next part.
Then answer the following questions modified from t holtz:
Part I: New Blood
The dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs in the video begins in the Late Triassic Period featuring Arizona, and in particular the rocks and fossils of the Chinle Formation. (The Chinle is most famous for the Petrified Forest).
The key players involved:
The giant predatory pseudosuchian archosaur Postosuchus
Two different synapsids, improperly called “reptiles” here even though they aren’t reptiles under the phylogenetic meaning of that term. They are known as mammal like reptiles:
O The bulky ox-sized dicynodont Placerias
- O An unnamed cynodont species
- The early carnivorous dinosaur Coelophysis (One of the first dinosaurs in North America)
The early pterosaur (winged reptile) Peteinosaurus
The plant-eating prosauropod dinosaur Plateosaurus
Coelophysis were among the earliest successful groups of dinosaurs in a world dominated by pseudosuchians like Postosuchus and herbivorous synapsids like Placerias. Dinosaurs differed from other Triassic creatures in a number of ways. Indicate below whether the statements are true or false, based on First Blood worth 1pt each. More recent evidence about Coelophysis has disproved some of what was shown about the dinosaur group in the video:
- 1.) Coelophysis was larger than Postosuchus and Placerias:
- 2.) Coelophysis operated in groups, whereas both Postosuchus and Placerias only lived alone:
- 3.) Coelophysis was a biped; Postosuchus and Placerias were both quadrupedal while walking:
4.) Coelophysis was rather fast; both Postosuchus and Placerias were slower:
5.) Coelophysis could kill its own food; Postosuchus was a strict scavenger:
6.) This episode shows two examples of cannibalism. The first case shows the cynodonts eating their young. Why do they do this, according to the video? 2pts
7) The second case of cannibalism shows Coelophysis eating their own babies during the drought. This latter event was based on a misunderstanding of a site in which Coelophysis specimens which died from drought at a watering hole were found with what were thought to be baby Coelophysis bones in their bellies. (It turned out, as shown a study first published in 2006, that these were really bones of the fast running crocodile-relative Hesperosuchus). What evidence WOULD have been needed to show that Coelophysis engaged in cannibalism in these situations?