09/02/2020
Episode #8: Know Your Prehistoric Marine Reptiles with Pat Druckenmiller
The nerds try and impress Dr. Pat Druckenmiller with their knowledge of marine reptiles. The key word being try.
Dr. Pat Druckenmiller
Curator of Earth Sciences at the University of Alaska Museum of the North
Dave and Ray try and show off their knowledge of prehistoric marine reptiles but (of course) they're no match for Dr. Pat Druckenmiller, someone who's actually studied them. Pat's a vertebrate paleontologist and prehistoric marine reptiles are his specialty. He teaches and studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks where he goes biking in -40 degree weather.
The long-necked, tiny-headed, big-eyed Plesiosaur Pat's team discovered in Svalbard.
To help you follow along as Pat walks us through the evolution of marine reptiles:
Sauropterygia includes: Plesiosaurians, Nothosaurs, Pachypleurosaurs, Placodonts and Pliosaurus funkei (AKA Predator X) which is WAY way bigger than Liopleurodon (Sorry, Walking with Dinosaurs).
Ichthyosaurs: have huge eye sockets and bodies that kept getting bigger and bigger throughout the Mesozoic era.
Mososaurs (perfect squamates) includes:Tylosaurs, Platecarpus. And then there's the lesser known Thalattosaurs like Gunakadeit.
**Remember, these are marine reptiles, NOT to be confused with (Spinosaurus, the swimming dinosaur which are diapsid reptiles)
Here's the trailer for the very imaginative interpretation of what it would be like if Predator-X was alive today.
What was that cool song I heard?
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