#pachyrhinosaurus canadensis

[saritawolff]

A Patreon request for rome.and.stuff (Instagram) - Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum… that I went a bit overboard with lol. I’ve been waiting for an excuse to draw my favorite ceratopsian, and to digitally adapt my old Pachy marker drawing design.

So! Pachyrhinosaurus! As seen above, there were three known species of Pachyrhinosaurus, living in different locations and eras in Late Cretaceous North America.

The oldest, P. lakustai, was native to the Wapiti Formation of Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. It’s known for the extra spikes it has at the center of its frill.

The slightly younger P. canadensis was native to the lower Horseshoe Canyon Formation and the St. Mary River Formation of Alberta and northwestern Montana. It was the largest of the three.

The youngest, P. perotorum, was native to the Prince Creek Formation of Alaska. As this ceratopsid seemingly stayed put during the long, dark, cold Alaskan Winters, it likely had adaptations for keeping warm.

The depiction of a “woolly” Pachyrhinosaurus was first popularized by Mark Witton as a speculative work, but the trope has prevailed. While many paleontologists find a heavy feather covering on a centrosaurine to be highly unlikely, and maintain that the animal’s size and homeothermy would have kept it warm enough, we still have no skin impressions to suggest that P. perotorum was fully scaly. So a feather coating is not completely out of the question (though it is unlikely). Still, I love the look of a woolly Pachyrhinosaurus and how it challenges our previous conceptions of non-avian dinosaurs. Stranger things exist in nature. I had to include a “woolly” option, especially since I already use the guy as my avatar on my paleo Instagram account, SaritaPaleo.

Pachyrhinosaurus was particularly unique in that it seemingly traded off something that had previously worked for other ceratopsians, horns, for a large nasal boss instead. For Pachyrhinosaurus, a battering ram worked better than a sword.

It was herbivorous, using its strong cheek teeth to chew tough, fibrous plants. Perhaps during the dark and cold Winters, P. perotorum would have also dug for roots or even scavenged carcasses. At any rate, from observations of their unusually conspicuous growth banding, it appears growth for P. perotorum would have been stunted during the harsh Winter, but was extremely rapid in the warmer months, an adaptation for the Alaskan climate.

The tundra of the Prince Creek Formation housed a surprising amount of diversity. Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum would have lived alongside smaller ceratopsians like Leptoceratopsids, as well as other ornithischians like the pachycephalosaurine Alaskacephale and the hadrosaurid Edmontosaurus. Theropods such as Dromaeosaurus and Saurornitholestes, as well as a yet unidentified giant Troodontid, lived here as well. P. perotorum’s main predator would have been the tyrannosaur Nanuqsaurus. Small mammals were also somewhat common here, such as Cimolodon, Gypsonictops, Sikuomys, Unnuakomys, and an indeterminate marsupial.

(Btw, the request tier for Patreon starts at only $5 a month. 😉 Link is pinned at the top of my blog.)

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis, P. lakustai, P. perotorum

By José Carlos Cortés on @ryuukibart

PLEASE support us on Patreon! We really do need all of your support to keep this blog running - any amount helps!

Name: Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis, P. lakustai, P. perotorum

Name Meaning: Thick-nosed Reptile

First Described: 1950

Described By: Sternberg

Classification: Dinosauria, Ornithischia, Genasauria, Neornithischia, Cerapoda, Marginocephalia, Ceratopsia, Neoceratopsia, Coronosauria, Ceratopsoidea, Ceratopsidae, Centrosaurinae, Pachyrhinosaurini, Pachyrostra

Pachyrhinosaurus is one of the more famous Ceratopsians, due to its widespread prevalence and distinctive nose lump. Indeed, it was one of the more common Centrosaurines, not restricted to a single area of Canada but rather found in Alaska and Canada, and not limited to the Campanian but living from 73.5 to 69 million years ago, from the latest Campanian to the Maastrichtian ages of the Late Cretaceous. It was first found in the Horseshoe Canyon Formation of Alberta, and then other remains were found in the St. Mary River Formation in Alberta as well. Further remains were found in the Kikak-Tegoseak Quarry in northernmost Alaska. As such, though there is no known evidence of such, it is not unreasonable to suppose that Pachyrhinosaurus may have supported feather filaments like its distant cousins Kulindadromeus and Psittacosaurus for warmth; much like a wooly rhinoceros. Though this is a controversial idea, it is not outside the realm of possibility; really, it depends primarily on the actual plasticity of filamentous integument in non-avian dinosaurs. So, we include a feathered Pachyrhinosaurus here too; very well equipped to defend itself against the cold of the Cretaceous Arctic.

By Karen Carr, CC BY 2.5

Pachyrhinosaurus could get to be up to 8 meters long, weighing four tonnes and having strong teeth to chew tough plants. The flattened lump over the nose and eyes were accompanied by horns on the frill; though in P. perotorum and some specimens of P. lakustai two backward pointing horns found on other members of the genus are not present. Instead, P. perotorum had flattened horns on the top edge of the frill, and P. lakustai had a comb horn from the middle of the frill behind the eyes. This diversity of ornaments on their skulls is likely due to the influence of sexual selection. P. canadensis and P. lakustai are known from the formations in Alberta, while P. perotorum is known from Alaska. As a young animal, its ornamentation is much diminished, including the lump on the nose; as it grew bigger so did the ornamentation, strengthening the case for sexual selection being at work. 

By Jack Wood on @thewoodparable

In the St. Mary River Formation, Pachyrhinosaurus lived alongside many other dinosaurs such as Anchiceratops, Montanoceratops, Edmontonia, Edmontosaurus, Saurornitholestes, Troodon, Thescelosaurus, Albertosaurus, and many other non-dinosaurs. In the Horseshoe Canyon Formation, it lived alongside such animals as Anodontosaurus, Edmontonia, Euoplocephalus, Atrociraptor, Epichirostenotes, Richardoestesia, Paronychodon, Albertonykus, Dromiceiomimus, Ornithomimus, Struthiomimus, Stegoceras, Sphaerotholus, Parksosaurus, Edmontosaurus, Hypacrosaurus, Saurolophus, Anchiceratops, Arrhinoceratops, Eotriceratops, Montanaceratops, Albertosaurus, Gorgosaurus, and Daspletosaurus. In both, it lived in a floodplain environment, near the inland sea. 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachyrhinosaurus

http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2015/02/controversial-ceratopsids-revisited.html

Shout out goes to @allysharp!

[lauras-happy-place]

Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis

('thick-nosed reptile, from Canada')

Centrosaurinae Pachyrhinosaurini

Pachyrhinosaurus is represented by three species.

P. lakustai ('for Al Lakusta'): the geologically-oldest species; found in the Wapiti Formation of Alberta, ~73.5 - 72.5 Ma; distinguishable in part by a unicorn-style horn on the parietal bone at the centre of the frill, behind the eyes.

Chronologically next is P. canadensis: this is the type species and largest of the bunch; Horseshoe Canyon Formation and contemporary St. Mary River Formation, also in Alberta, ~71.5 - 71 Ma.

The youngest species is P. perotorum ('for Ross Perot'), from the Prince Creek Formation on the North Slope of Alaska, ~70 - 69 Ma; truly an Arctic dinosaur, at least for the summer months.

Pachyrhinosaurus, Achelousaurus, and Einiosaurus together form the tribe Pachyrhinosaurini.

Alberta, Canada, and Alaska, USA.

Upper Cretaceous.

~

Artwork by Sergey Krasovskiy.

Daily Dino Fact #7

(I was busy, sorry for the late update)

[preholocene]

          @august-specter​ !!

         pachyrhinosaurus canadensis is a bulky and defensive animal, but even as thick-scaled as it is, being hit full speed by a car is enough to have it sprawling. for once, the dinosaur isn’t even the creature that started the conflict, having been carrying itself as fast as its legs could move away from the bright lights and heavy noise that the city had to offer. with people prone to panic when a large monster comes huffing and puffing down the streets, intervention is quick to follow. this time, by a trucker who has had enough of the infrequent, but still memorable, rampages through the city.

         now, with broken leg and fractured hip, the animal can’t even pull itself up off the ground. it’s small justice that the human responsible for its misery is also injured from the collision, but robbed by the fact that it doesn’t comprehend that the vehicle is anything other than a monster in its own right. all it can do now is honk in vain as it struggles to rise to its feet, and then collapse, resigned that this injury would kill it back in its own time.

[thecoffeeisblack]

Some more work in progress on the underpainting for my Cretaceous Traffic Jam illustration. I have worked out some more details for the rocks on the riverbed and the trees on the side as well as hammered out and fixed some issues with my composition. I'm basing the patterning of Troodon formosus on male and female Eastern Downy Woodpeckers, I'm not sure what the patterning and coloration on the Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis will be, I'm leaning towards some earthy tones with grays and browns, with maybe some reds, something that would blend in with a forest environment.

[shadows-and-science-gone-mad]

An Analysis of the Creature Designs in Jurassic Fight Club

The 2008 History Channel miniseries Jurassic Fight Club was not a good show. Almost objectively, it was a badly-done series. The effects were of generally high quality, but those decent effects were in service of a poorly-scripted, gratuitously-violent, scientifically-inaccurate gorefest masquerading as a documentary.

It’s not worth your time.

That said, one bit of unambiguous praise I can give it lies in the designs for the dinosaurs. While they are frequently very inaccurate, they are completely unlike any dinosaur designs in any other media. The showrunners very easily could have just appropriated stock footage from older programs to pad their runtime, but they created unique clips featuring their own designs, which is commendable.

In this post, I’m going to be going through all of the creature designs that appear in Jurassic Fight Club and give my honest thoughts on them. I will factor in both accuracy to the real animal and my own personal tastes, and ultimately assign each one a score out of 10.

So, without further ado, let’s begin:

Majungasaurus crenatissimus (male)

Let’s cover these in order of appearance, which means that the male Majungasaurus is first on the plate. (I am choosing to ignore that they call it Majungatholus in the narration; that is not what this creature’s name is.)

This is a pretty interesting portrayal of this animal. They very easily could have just thrown some skin over the bones and called it a day. But, they stretched their creativity a bit and gave it some speculative soft tissue, and I like that.

That said, the anatomy is completely wrong for a Majungasaurus. The skull is correct, but the arms are too well-developed, and the legs are way too long and lean. Those proportions would work pretty well if this were a Carnotaurus, but it’s a bit too athletic for a majungasaur.

7/10.

Majungasaurus crenatissimus (female)

This is much more in line with what I was expecting from their Majungasaurus. It has the exact same problems as the male, and is missing the speculative soft tissue that I liked so much. Still okay, but not as interesting as the male.

6/10.

Tyrannosaurus rex

No, I don’t know why it’s squatting like that in this promotional image.

Ignoring the weird pose, this isn’t too bad, actually. Sure, it still has broken wrists, and the skull is a bit off, but it otherwise looks about right. For a depiction of T. rex from 2008, this is pretty decent stuff. I like the muted purple color, and I am immensely appreciative of the fact that they didn’t just copy-paste a Jurassic Park rex into their show. They could have very easily done that, but they chose to make something more representative of the actual animal.

8/10.

Nanotyrannus lancensis

This one’s a bit tough to judge. You see, Nanotyrannus doesn’t actually exist. In 2008, it was considered its own genus. But, in the decade since this series aired, it has been all but confirmed that Nanotyrannus is just a juvenile Tyrannosaurus.

That said, as a juvenile Tyrannosaurus, this is pretty good. It’s slim and fierce, with a good color scheme and decent accuracy to the fossils. Aside from the fact that this animal never existed, this is decent. Not bad at all.

7/10.

Deinonychus antirrhopus

I am of completely mixed opinions about this one. On the one hand, aside from the broken wrists, the anatomy is pretty much spot-on. You can tell that the designers actually looked at real Deinonychus skeletons to model this. Also, the blue body with the striping on the tail is a very striking color pallete. As a design, this is actually pretty good.

But, then we get to the elephant in the room. Not a single feather to be found anywhere on its body. Even in 2008, no feathers at all was barely acceptable, and it is completely unforgiveable today.

I have heard that they didn’t do feathers because of budgetary restrictions, which is understandable, but it does drag this design down quite a bit.

I’m going to have to give it a neutral score. It’s a great monster design, but it’s a terrible raptor.

5/10.

Tenontosaurus tilletti

Poor Tenontosaurus. It pretty much only ever gets media representation so that it can be killed by either Deinonychus or Acrocanthosaurus, and nobody ever seems to give it the time of day.

Fortunate, then, that this is a fantastic design.

Anatomically, it’s spot-on. The colors are dull, but not boring. It has a good amount of soft tissue, and carries a real sense of weight. Out of all the dinosaurs in the show, this one looks the most like a real animal. I have absolutely no complaints.

10/10.

Stegosaurus ungulatus

This is top-quality stuff right here. The proportions are good, even if the tail is a bit on the short side. The hands have the correct number of digits, and all of the plates and spikes seem to be in order. Again, the colors are a bit drab, but it feels appropriate for an animal of this size.

Also, how strange is it that, of all shows, Jurassic Fight Club is the only one I’ve seen that gets Stegosaurus’s weirdly long neck right?

Another triumph.

10/10.

Ceratosaurus nasicornis

Wow.

This is almost entirely perfect.

It has the right skull, it has the long teeth, it has the osteoderms on the back, the proportions are correct. Literally the only inaccuracy I can find is the pronated wrists, but that’s hardly enough to tarnish this thing’s otherwise perfect score.

This may be the best depiction of Ceratosaurus I’ve ever seen, and it is unquestionably the best design in the show.

10/10.

Camarasaurus supremus

Eh.

It looks about right, but it just feels...plain. This is the first one where the dull color scheme is a downside. It’s just flat grey with a yellow head. I do like that detail, but that’s pretty much all it has going for it.

Also, it has elephant feet, which is just wrong.

4/10.

Allosaurus fragilis

Alright, buckle down, because this one’s really bad.

Whereas everything up to this point at least feels like they looked at the actual animal as they were rendering, I’m not certain anyone involved in this thing’s design process had ever seen an Allosaurus skeleton. Let me count the issues:

The skull is so utterly wrong I’m unconvinced they didn’t just completely make it up.

The horns are the wrong size, the wrong shape, and in the wrong spot.

The wrists are broken and stuck on the end of way-too-long human arms.

The torso is too shallow, and has this weird hunchback thing going on.

The legs are too short, and those dainty little feet are bordering on comical. It doesn’t look like it should be able to stand up.

Literally no component of this thing’s anatomy resembles the animal it is supposed to be. It’s a trainwreck.

1/10.

Carcharocles megalodon

To begin with, yes, I am all aboard Team Carcharocles.

With that out of the way, this is a very “meh” design. It’s literally just a big great white shark. No real creativity or imagination at play here. Normally, that would be fine, but C. megalodon isn’t particularly closely related to the great white, so I can’t rate this too highly.

4/10.

Brygmophyseter shigensis

Conversely, I think that making Brygmophyseter a modified sperm whale is completely appropriate. This animal was a close cousin of the modern sperm whale, and thus would probably look fairly similar.

Decent colors, realistic anatomy, appropriate role within the episode’s story. Pretty decent stuff.

7/10.

Gastonia burgei

The show’s designers keep doing a really good job with their armored dinosaurs. The Stegosaurus above was one of their best, and Gastonia here is no different.

It certainly helps that Gastonia is known from pretty solid remains, so they had a lot of material to work with. It looks pretty much as it should, and the color scheme is vibrant, but not overdone. Pretty stellar work overall.

9/10.

Utahraptor ostrommaysi

Okay, I was willing to be forgiving of the Deinonychus because of the colors, plus the fact that they nailed its skeletal anatomy. This thing doesn’t have either of those advantages.

I can forgive the incorrect skull, Utahraptor‘s skull wasn’t known until nearly a decade after the show came out. What I cannot forgive is the drab, boring color scheme and those AWFUL feathers. If this is all they were going to do to add feathers to their raptors, I’m almost glad they left Deinonychus scaly.

Just awful.

2/10.

Arctodus simus

Wait. They didn’t have the budget to render raptors with proper feathers, but they did have the budget to do an episode all about furry Pleistocene mammals?

Anyways, this is alright. The skull looks a bit off to me, and the legs are too short, but it’s not awful. Y’know, aside from the fact that they gave this bear human eyes for some reason.

6/10.

Panthera leo atrox

That sure is a lion.

5/10.

Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis

That is not Pachyrhinosaurus. Even ignoring the erroneous horn, -- which is addressed as speculative within the show -- that is straight-up not the skull of a Pachyrhinosaurus. They just modelled an (admittedly okay-looking) Achelousaurus, and then had the narrator call it Pachyrhinosaurus.

3/10.

Albertosaurus sarcophagus

I don’t even know what to say here. All of the show’s other theropods had something interesting or noteworthy about them, either good or bad. But, this is just every pop-culture Albertosaurus I’ve ever seen.

It certainly is there.

4/10.

Edmontosaurus annectens

This is one of the most completely unremarkable creature designs I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s a single dull color, it has no speculative soft tissue, and its only role in the episode is to be killed and eaten by predators.

This is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a representation of a Perfectly Normal Beast. There is not a single remarkable thing here.

And it’s a shame, because Edmontosaurus is a very interesting and underrated animal, but here it gets saddled with this halfhearted shrug of a design.

4/10.

Dromaeosaurus albertensis

Yeesh.

This has the advantage of being more anatomically accurate than the Utahraptor and the colors are okay, but those feathers are, again, absolutely appalling.

Topping that off, the narration talks about them communicating with each other via sign language, which is just...dumb. Even as a kid, I thought that was dumb.

2/10.

[awannabepaleoartist]

Dinovember Day 18: Around the Watering Hole

Anchiceratops at the watering hole with other Horseshoe Canyon Formation contemporaries, Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis and Edmontosaurus regalis.

I’m a little behind on my drawings as you may be able to tell, but it’s fine. I can probably catch up again before too long.

[coelacanthking]

DINOVEMBER DAY 1- Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis, 'the thick-nosed lizard'. Laurasia (Canada), Upper Cretaceous. Paleoart by Raul Ramos. ▪▪▪ #Dinosaurs #Fossils #Paleontology #Paleoart #Science

[alphynix]

Ceratopsian Month #17 -- Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis

Pachyrhinosaurus (“thick-nosed lizard”) has become one of the more recognizable ceratopsian names in the last couple of decades, but its remains have actually been known for over 70 years, first discovered in the mid-1940s.

Three different species have been named within the genus, all living about 74-69 million years ago in Alberta, Canada, and Alaska, USA. The type species P. canadensis dates to roughly the middle of that time span, at an age of around 71 million years.

It was one of the largest of the centrosaurs, with the biggest specimens estimated to have measured up to 8m long (26′). Thousands of fossils have been found in a bone bed that seems to represent a mass mortality event -- possibly a herd caught in a flash flood -- with ages ranging from juveniles to adults.

Rather than horns, Pachyrhinosaurus had huge flattened bosses on its skull, which nearly grew together into a single large mass in both P. canandensis and the younger species P. perotorum. The older species P. lakustai instead had more separated bosses and a “unicorn horn” on its forehead.

(I’m also hardly the first person to speculate about fluffy pachyrhinosaurs, but since they lived in a chilly Arctic environment it’s certainly an interesting possibility.)

[shafle72]

Horsethief Canyon incorporates the last years of the Cretaceous Period, 70 million years ago, the end of the age of dinosaurs. Among the notable specimens uncovered in the Horsethief is a horned dinosaur with a thick nose named Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis, according to Royal Tyrrell Museum research scientist David Eberth. 08.03.19 at Drumheller (at Drumheller, Alberta) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0xJPyOn0Up/?igshid=15tlxrbaijgv

[tooth-repellant]

A ceratopsian scapula sticking out of the hill. Though most of the scapula is covered, you can make out the outline where the fossil has broken and some broken fragments on the far left.

This is in the Horsetheif member of the Horseshoe Canyon Formation (71.5-71 mya). Three Ceratopsians occupy this temporal and geographic range: Anchiceratops ornatus, Arrhinoceratops brachyops, and Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis. The stratigraphic range of Ar. brachyopsis inferred to encompass the entire member, though skeletal material has yet to be recovered in the lower half of the member (Ebreth et al. 2013), which is where scapula is located. Therefore the specimen likely belongs to either An. ornatus or P. canadensis. 

[drawingwithdinosaurs]

In a sweeping piece of potential taxonomic heresy, a group of researchers have went ahead and split the three Pachyrhinosaurus species into three genera, Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis, Wapiticeratops lakustai and Uminmaluk perotorum.

According to the researchers, the way centrosaurine genera are currently separated would warrant that the individual species of Pachyrhinosaurus are distinct on the generic level. They suggest that the boss has been what's skewing people's opinions, and that anything with that kind of boss has just been arbitrarily placed in Pachyrhinosaurus because it's 'the centrosaur with a boss'. Surprising perhaps, but maybe not that unprecedented when you consider the way other centrosaurs are split.

So far I’ve only been able to find the abstract, but I’ll keep you all posted when the full paper is available, stay on your toes!

[lauras-happy-place]

Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis

('thick-nosed reptile, from Canada')

Centrosaurinae Pachyrhinosaurini

Pachyrhinosaurus is the most species-rich genus of ceratopsid, represented by three species.

P. lakustai ('for Al Lakusta'): the geologically-oldest species; found in the Wapiti Formation of Alberta, ~73.5 - 72.5 Ma; distinguishable in part by a unicorn-style horn on the parietal bone at the centre of the frill, behind the eyes.

Chronologically next is P. canadensis: this is the type species and largest of the bunch; Horseshoe Canyon Formation and contemporary St. Mary River Formation, also in Alberta, ~71.5 - 71 Ma.

The youngest species is P. perotorum ('for Ross Perot'): from the Prince Creek Formation on the North Slope of Alaska, ~70 - 69 Ma; truly an Arctic dinosaur, at least for the summer months; was likely migratory.

Pachyrhinosaurus, Achelousaurus, and Einiosaurus together form the tribe Pachyrhinosaurini.

Alberta, Canada, and Alaska, USA.

Upper Cretaceous.

~

Artwork by Sergey Krasovskiy.

Daily Dino Fact #17

[thetorterra]

We're playing a song called Mr. P.C. in Jazz Band, and I figured this would be appropriate.

[thecoffeeisblack]

A little work in progress on my Cretaceous Traffic Jam painting featuring, Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis and Troodon formosus. I'm in the process of getting the details done for the underpainting before I start in on colors.

[thecoffeeisblack]

Getting the basic color and patterning set up on the work in progress for my Cretaceous Traffic Jam illustration featuring Troodon formosus and Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis. Color is pulling from a Great Horned Owl on and a bit of a Greater Short-Horned Lizard. Troodon will be drawn from an Eastern Downy Woodpecker.