Crested Dancer
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Summary: In the Kayenta Formation, Arizona, in the Early Jurassic 193 million years ago, a young male Dilophosaurus lived a simple life hunting and drinking, but then the colony's breeding season arrived leaving him confused. But after watching his peers perform their dances and learning the moves, he puts on his own elaborate dance to impress a female.
Cast: Dilophosaurus(Focus), Sarahsaurus, Lymnaea hopii, Valvata gregorii, Lophionotus, Ceratodus stewarti, Prosalirus, Eocaecilia, Navajosphenodon, Kayentachelys, Kayentasuchus, Eopneumatosuchus, Calsoyasuchus, Kayentavenator, Coelophysis kayentakatae, Scutellosaurus, Rhamphinion, Dinnebitodon, Kayentatherium, and Dinnetherium.
It starts off in the famous Dueling Dinosaurs in battle, Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. This display is in the center of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles as Thomas stands behind them with a stuffed model of a Spitting Cobra and a Frill-necked Lizard in front of him on a desk as he begins to speak. "Dinosaurs have always played an important role in popular culture seen in Cartoons, Museums, Toys, Documentaries, Video Games, and Movies. When people hear the word Dinosaur, they think of the famous T. Rex, or perhaps the Triceratops behind me. There are other examples like Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus, and Spinosaurus to name a few. There are some dinosaurs that remain unknown to the public eye only to rise to fame in popularity in Documentaries or Movies, one example is this dinosaur." Brings out a cast model and places it on the desk. "Dilophosaurus, an Early Jurassic theropod. In most media and in the movie Jurassic Park depicts Dilophosaurus as a small predator with a frill and spits venom. That was just the work of Hollywood, it was downsized to avoid confusion with the Velociratptor although in real life it was about the height of a normal human, it had three fingers on its arm instead of four, it had no frill which is based on the Australian frill-necked lizard, and did not spit venom which is based on the spitting cobra. There are new studies regarding its skull and crests, it was once thought it had a weak bite, but it turned out to be a powerful bite hunting fish and other dinosaurs making it the largest apex predator of its time. The crests turned out to be hollowed with air sacs and would have been covered with keratin and it could be used to amphilife sounds that could be heard from far away to communicate with others of their kind. So what was the real life Dilophosaurus like compared to the movies?"
. . . . .
Arizona is known for its hot intense heat as it is in one of the most hostile habitats, the Sonoran Desert and landmarks like the famous Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam. Back in the Early Jurassic, the Grand Canyon hadn't formed and eroded with the flowing Colorado River. The environment was seasonally dry, with sand dunes migrating in and out of the wet environments where animals lived, and has been likened to a river oasis; a waterway lined with conifers and surrounded by sand. Kayenta formation used to be a tropical floodplain, a bit like African savannah today. Ferns cover the open plains, dotted with islands of spiky cycad groves. Rivers crisscross the land with lush tree ferns, ginkgo trees, and conifers. Every year during the wet season the plains turn into a flooded marsh, but the hottest months bring no rain, and the rivers shrink until the plains are almost as dry as the great desert that lies to the north. In one of these oases is home to a hunter resting among the ferns and cycads is a deadly predator with two brightly colored crests that adorn his head, a male Dilophosaurus.
The theropod opens his eyes and wakes up to the morning sunrise, once standing up heads off to the oasis to quench his thirst. These fertile areas are formed when sources of freshwater, such as underground rivers or aquifers, which irrigate the surface naturally and are filled by rain water. It sustains plant life which consists of conifers, cycads, gingkos, tree ferns, and ferns and provides habitat for animals. Underwater small pond snails known as Lymnaea hopii and Valvata gregorii slowly move about cleaning the sediments, rocks, and underwater plants feeding on dead vegetation, dead fish, and algae using their tongue mouth like radulas to cut and scrape off aquatic vegetation and algae. Fish swim here like Lophionotus and Ceratodus stewarti, a type of lungfish. The lungfish is remarkable for breathing through their gills in the water and taking gulps of air from the surface. It is also capable of surviving seasonal drying out of their habitats by burrowing into mud and estivating throughout the dry season. They are omnivorous, feeding on fish, insects, crustaceans, worms, mollusks, amphibians and plant matter. The male dilophosaurus approaches the oasis waters edge to come for a drink. It dips his head in the water and scoops the water back like a bird.
There are also amphibians along the water's edges, frogs like Prosalirus hide among the water plants and Unlike modern caecilians, which are legless, Eocaecilia possessed small legs, and Eocaecilia, a type of Caecilian swims about in the shallows under the cover of the aquatic vegetation while modern caecilians have poorly developed eyes and spend a lot of time underground, Eocaecilia's eyes were somewhat better developed. A small crocodilian figure rustles through the ferns and bushes, a Kayentasuchus, a small basal crocodylomorph, stalks among the ferns and rushes out snatching a frog and swallowing it whole. As the morning progresses coming from the forest, a flock of Coelophysis kayentakatae have come to drink from the oasis. This species is a survivor from the Late Triassic period, it was a relatively small dinosaur, reaching 2.5 m (8.2 ft) in length and 30 kg (66 lb) in body mass. It had two small, parallel crests which may demonstrate an evolutionary step toward later and larger neotheropods, such as the more advanced and larger Dilophosaurus. They were originally called by the genus Syntarsus, but that genus name was found to be preoccupied by a Colydiine beetle. The flock decides to go towards the other side as they step into the shallows and into deeper water as they swim, their hollow air-filled bones and air sacs help them with their buoyancy and their legs help paddle through the water. There have been trace fossil marks of trackways made by swimming dinosaurs in this formation.
Such water sources are also home to semi-aquatic animals, basking on the banks of the oasis are a bask of two different species of crocodylomorphs, Eopneumatosuchus and Calsoyasuchus. Eopneumatosuchus was mostly a fish eater, a piscivore while Calsoyasuchus was a generelatis opportunist that fed on Fish, turtles, and whatever it could catch that came to drink. They lay out in the sun to bask which raises their body temperatures. When they want to cool back down they'll move out of the sun into the shade or a body or water. Another option is to open their mouths to release the heat from their body. Basking on the rocks and fallen logs are a bale known as Kayentachelys, based upon the sharp tapered edges of the low-domed shell and the lack of both limb armor and sculpturing on the carapace. They were mostly aquatic turtles sticking to sources of water for moisture and food and they then swim off back to the waters upon seeing the crested theropod approaching.
The male Dilophosaurus slowly wades into the shallows searching for some fish prey. Dilophosaurus had features that indicate it may have eaten fish. They pointed out that the ends of the jaws were expanded to the sides, forming a "rosette" of interlocking teeth, similar to those of spinosaurids, known to have eaten fish, and gharials, which is the modern crocodile that eats the most fish. The nasal openings were also retracted back on the jaws, similar to spinosaurids, which have even more retracted nasal openings, and this may have limited water splashing into the nostrils during fishing. Both groups also had long arms with well-developed claws, which could help when catching fish. It snatches a Lophionotus with his jaws and drags it to the shore and starts to tear chunks of flesh from the fish. This fish isn't enough to satisfy this theropod's hunger and goes off to find larger prey.
In a clearing in this lush paradise is a herd of sauropodomorphs called Sarahsaurus that are browsing on conifers and ferns. They rear up to reach the tops of the trees while being bipedal with their tails for support, and some individuals climb up the trunk of the tree with their forelimb claws to latch onto the bark for support. They are the largest herbivores in the environment, and their descendants would eventually become the titanic sauropods later on. Browsing the cycads, ferns, and tree ferns alongside them is a small group of Scutellosaurus, one of the earliest representatives of the armored dinosaurs and the basalmost form discovered to date. They are classified in Thyreophora, the armored dinosaurs; its closest relatives may have been Emausaurus and Scelidosaurus, another armored dinosaur which was mainly a quadrupedal dinosaur, unlike the bipedal Scutellosaurus. It was a small, lightly-built, ground-dwelling herbivore that could grow up to an estimated 1.3 meters (4.3 ft) long and had an unusually long tail, possibly to provide a counterbalance against the weight of the armored body. There are several hundred osteoderms running along its neck to its back and as far down as its tail. These formed parallel rows, with as many as five rows on each side. It also had double rows of osteoderms, or external plates, running neck to tail. Some of these shields were flat, while others were pitted. Despite their armor, they stick close to the larger Sarahsaurus for protection against large predators like Dilophosaurus.
Under the feet of the herbivores is a sphenodontid called Navajosphenodon feeding on some horsetails, which appeared during the Early Jurassic. Navajosphenodon is known from a fully articulated skeleton, and is similar in many aspects to the extant tuatara, both belonging to the Sphenodontinae, including sharing a complete lower temporal bar. It is one of the oldest known sphenodontines. Small mammals also come to feed on the plants, this mother Dinnebitodon and her young belong to the herbivorous Tritylodontidae family. Their teeth are designed to feed on roots, nuts, and seeds. One of the most friendliest is a cynodont called Kayentatherium. Measuring about a meter long it had a robust and stocky animal with a large head and stout backbone. Its limbs and slight flattening and flaring of the tail vertebrae indicate that it was a semi-aquatic living along sources of water; it would be one of the earliest examples of semi-aquatic specialism in mammaliamorphs in the mammal fossil record. Adults can lay at least 38 eggs, a number considerably higher than any living mammal litter. The size of the group suggests a clutch and babies have similar skull proportions to adults, with well-developed teeth, and may have been able to fend for themselves at birth. Allometric study shows that tritylodontids had proportionally smaller brains at this stage than mammal perinates, which supports the hypothesis that the evolution of larger brain size in early mammals was associated with changes in reproductive strategy to invest more parental energy in a smaller number of offspring.
The Male Dilophosaurus slowly stalks towards the herbivores blending in with the environment. Once close enough, he rushes out of the bushes causing the herbivores spotting the predator to flee. The Navajosphenodon hides in a burrow in the ground while the Kayentatherium heads for cover diving into the water. The Scutellosaurus and Sarahsaurus herds run as the crested predator chases them. A couple of Scutellosaurus corned in a dead end turned around to swish and swing their armored osteoderm tails to defend themselves against the Dilophosaurus who snaps at them. This evolutionary adaptation will be seen in the later ankylosaurs in which some would evolve to have club tails.
The male Dilophosaurus changes his mind and heads towards a weak Sarahsaurus who was slow to catch up. With no were else to go the Sauropodomorph turns to face his attacker, they hissed and snapped at each other along with trying to slash with their claws while dodging them. Soon the Dilophosaurus rushes in and grabs the Sarahsaurus by the throat as the Sarahsaurus claws him on the sides as they tumble down the hill while locked in combat. Once on the bottom, the Sarahsaurus tries to kick the predator up, but the Dilophosaurus delivers his powerful bite to the throat killing the herbivore as it have been bite marks found on Sarahsaurus that would have been made by Dilophosaurus.
Soon the Dilophosaurus begins to feast on his kill. Several minutes and suddenly arriving due to the scent of fresh meat, a pack of tetanuran theropods called Kayentavenator gathered to wait for the Dilophosaurus to finish his meal to scavenge the remains. But the Dilophosaurus is not ready to live and defends his kill, he hisses a warning at them. But the Kayentavenator pack is getting hungry and then joined by the Coelophysis flock as they advance on the predator. The Dilophosaurus hisses at them to drive them away and brings out a secret weapon, his mane of proto feathers puff up and spread forming a frill. This is to make himself bigger and scary, but if that doesn't work he vomits a foul-smelling orange liquid out his mouth at the scavengers. Some of the vomit lands on the scavengers, and the pungent smell fills the air that they are forced to retreat leaving the dilophosaurus to continue on his feast.
After a long day, the Dilophosaurus continues on his way walking through the forest that borders the oasis. In the trees, small pterosaurs fly about and perch on the branches, these Rhamphinion could be part of the Dimorphodontia clade. They find small animals and insects on the forest floor, as they are poor flyers flying only for short bursts and glide from one tree to the next. Soon the forests echo with wailing bellowing calls that can be heard from miles. The male Dilophosaurus follows these sounds leading him to the semi-arid scrub land area of the oasis outside the forest.
The Male Dilophosaurus has come upon a large open dirt clearing. Each spot is occupied by a Male Dilophosaurus as a group of females that was dull colored compared to the brightly colored males have come to gather as this was a lek. This is the greatest time of the year, as Male Dilophosaurus put on a courtship dance to impress and attract mates and raise their young together, but it's the choice making of the females who choose the more brightly colored, larger, and healthier males.
The Male Dilophosaurus has been part of this every year, but has often been rejected. So he slowly watches his peers to master their moves alongside other young males. He watches one male Dilophosaurus strutting, spreading his arms which have bristle filaments dangling and swishing his tail high in the air as he bends down shaking his head side to side while showing his crest. Then he stands up and puffs up his mane of protofeathers forming a colorful frill as a secondary purpose to attract a mate. He hisses and bobs his head back and forth in front of the female.
Then the Dilophosaurus watches a second male, this time scratching the ground with his feet, walking sideways from left to right while presenting his feather mane frill, and then he inflates his colorful gular throat sac under his chin and throat and bellows creating a loud bellowing rumble.
After watching from the other males, the Male Dilophosaurus decides to give it a go again. He finds a clear dirt spot and begins to rumble with his mouth closed to attract any females. After thirty minutes passed, most of the females have chosen their mates except one. The Female Dilophosaurus approaches the male looking at him.
Then the courtship ritual begins, The Male Dilophosaurus starts off by strutting in front of her, followed by spreading his arms with bristle filaments dangling and swishing his tail high in the air as he bends down shaking his head side to side while showing his crest. Then he stands up and puffs up his mane of protofeathers forming a brightly colorful frill. He hisses and bobs his head back and forth in front of the female Dilophosaurus. He scratches the ground with his three toed claw feet, he starts walking sideways from left to right while presenting his feather mane frill, and then he inflates his colorful gular throat sac under his chin and throat and bellows creating a loud bellowing rumble.
After a brief moment of silence, the female Dilophosaurus observes him. Then she approaches him and warbles. She then puffs up her frill mane and hisses as she joins the dance as a sign that she accepts him as her mate. They twirled around, hissing and bellowing with their frills open. Then it ends with them lowering their heads and nuzzling their snouts. Soon the newly formed breeding pair departs the semi-arid scrub to the forest as night falls.
While a nocturnal Dinnetherium Morganucodont comes out of his nest cavity hole in the tree in search of insects. The Breeding pair after mating several times settle down to sleep, soon they would build a nest and lay their clutch of eggs. This has been quite a day for the Male Dilophosaurus that has succeeded in finding a mate as the Crested Dancer.
Trivia/References:
-The Dilophosaurus having a feather mane frill and spitting vomit is based on birds like fulmars and birds like the greater superb bird-of-paradise other than being accurate speculative depictions of the Jurassic Park/World versions.
-The Dilophosaurus courtship scene combines bird courtship behaviors from Greater Sage-Grouse, Bird of Paradises like the Parotia, Great Hornbills, Kakapo Parrots, and Blue Manakins.
-The Dilophosaurus hunt and defending its kill is a scene reference from the Documentary When Dinosaurs Roamed America.
-The Kayentatherium lifestyle is speculated and based on Capybaras.
-The Dilophosaurus scratching the ground with his feet during courtship is based on trace fossils that suggested dinosaurs did this.
-The Swimming Coelophysis is based on trace fossils from the Kayenta Formation.
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The Next Story is "Dimorphodon Rock," which follows two young Dimorphodon siblings living in the forest along the coast of Dorset, in the Early Jurassic as they learn about hunting for themselves, and avoid the dangers of the land predators.
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