A few years ago, paleontologists in the Dallas area made a remarkable discovery: the fossilized jawbone of a tiny, previously unidentified dinosaur.
Its features made it an unusual find for the area. Now, after years of further study, researchers with the Perot Museum of Nature and Science have on the news species in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Ron Tykoski, vice president of science and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Perot Museum, spoke with the Standard about the find and what it tells us about the fossil record in North Texas.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: First, what did you name this dinosaur? And could you tell us a little bit about the origins of this name?
Ron Tykoski: Sure. We named it Ampelognathus coheni. And the name there breaks down, it comes down from ancient Greek: 鈥渁mpelos鈥� for 鈥済rapes鈥� or 鈥済rapevine鈥� and 鈥済n谩thos,鈥� meaning 鈥渏aw,鈥� and 鈥渃oheni鈥� after the gentleman who actually found the fossil. So the name roughly translates out to 鈥淐ohen鈥檚 Grapevine jaw.鈥�
Cohen鈥檚 Grapevine jaw indicating, I guess, where the dino was discovered or the jaw was discovered. Who鈥檚 Cohen?
Yeah, [Murray] Cohen is the fellow who found it. He鈥檚 a volunteer, also fossil-hunting enthusiast, who likes going out to this particular exposure and spends his free time looking for fossils. And when he finds them, he brings them to us here at the Perot Museum, and then we do the science on it.
Well, now that鈥檚 amazing. So tell us how your team first came across this fossil. What was it like?
Well, he actually found this and sent pictures from when he was out on the exposure saying, hey, I think I found a little crocodile jaw. And I took a look at the dirty, you know, still covered in mud and dirt and junk down there and took a look at it. You could see tooth sockets and we鈥檇 found bits and pieces of little crocs out there before. So, 鈥測eah, you probably did; bring it on in.鈥�
And so it wasn鈥檛 till we were back in the lab and I was working on it under a microscope, cleaning it off, literally with needles under a scope and kind of 鈥渙kay, probably a little croc; probably a little croc.鈥� And then suddenly I started finding anatomical features on it, said, 鈥淭his is not a croc. This is something new.鈥�
And then, boom: Lo and behold, I found a particular feature on there that is only present in plant-eating dinosaurs. And so immediately I knew I had to shift the mental gears and go in a different direction.
禄 THE LAND BEFORE TEXAS:
Is it clear what kind of plants this creature ate? Was it was it also, I presume, being consumed by larger dinosaurs?
Well, what鈥檚 wonderful 鈥� yes, it probably spent most of its life trying to not be eaten by bigger things, other things 鈥� but yeah, as a matter of fact, from the very same deposits, the same exposures where we found the jaw, it turns out our paleo botanist here at the Perot have discovered a huge number of fossil plants, many of which will turn out to be new to science as well.
She鈥檚 still working on those. So we have the plant eater and we have the plants it was eating in the same time in the very same place.
How small are we talking about here?
This is a little animal. You know, the partial jaw that we have is about two inches long. The whole head, you could have fit it in the palm of your hand. It was probably six inches long, maybe give or take a little bit.
You know, the whole animal, it鈥檚 a lot of tail and a lot of neck. But I would guess it probably no heavier than a standard schnauzer or a golden retriever or something like that. Probably would have been about six feet long. But it could stand on your desk, you know, where you鈥檙e sitting right now, probably a foot and a half tall with the hips. Just a little bitty guy running around.
You know, you mentioned about the size of a dog. I guess a lot of folks would wonder: Are you sure this isn鈥檛 something else?
You know, that鈥檚 how science works. We worked for probably a year 鈥� to try to prove our idea wrong. That鈥檚 how science works. Science doesn鈥檛 work by proving things; scientific method works by disproving ideas. So our idea was 鈥� our hypothesis is 鈥� is this something new? Well, we worked really hard to show that it鈥檚 not.
And only after doing that 鈥� 鈥淚t鈥檚 not this; it鈥檚 not a croc. It鈥檚 not this kind of animal; it鈥檚 not that kind of animal. It doesn鈥檛 match anything else.鈥� After ruling all those things, though, and failing to disprove the idea, only then did we go forward and go, 鈥測ou know, we probably have something new here. Let鈥檚 go down that avenue of thought.鈥�
And then eventually we decided to chance it and put a name on it. And some reviewers at the Journal agreed with us 鈥� at least they didn鈥檛 flush it down the drain.
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So tell us about what you consider to be the significance of this discovery. And by the way, will this be on display at the museum?
We probably aren鈥檛 going to have this out on display anytime soon. One 鈥� it鈥檚 kind of unimpressive from a layperson鈥檚 perspective. It has scientific information of value, but it鈥檚 kind of ugly. But who knows? Maybe sometime down the road, maybe we incorporate it into something greater to tell the story about life in North Texas.
But that is the story. That is the contribution, this thing: This is from a time and a place with a very poor prehistoric record. You know, 96 million years of age in a part of North America that was east of a seaway that once split the continent in two. And that eastern side of that seaway has a terrible fossil record of terrestrial life.
And so every little thing we鈥檙e finding here is actually a new contribution to painting a better picture of what life was like in this half of North America at the time. Which then, of course, helps us figure out different patterns of how things evolved and how ecosystems changed for the next few millions of years leading up to the big extinction event that occurred 66 million years ago.
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