Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Granted, the burrow was a close fit, but this situation also applies to many
modern burrowing and denning mammals, such as coyotes (
Canis latrans
), striped
hyenas (
Hyaena hyaena
), and aardwolves (
Proteles cristatus
). It also makes good
evolutionary sense for burrows to be narrower rather than luxuriously spacious. For
one, tight spaces limit who else can go down the burrow, including predators of
eithertheadultsorjuveniles.Also,slenderburrowsarebetterabletoretainheatand
humidity, maintaining better climate control that is less influenced by surface con-
ditions and making it more like a cave. The twisting Z shape of the burrow would
have helped both of these factors, while also discouraging or confusing predators.
Forthelatter,putyourselfintheplaceofapredatorandimaginelookingdown
the burrow entrance and only seeing the short tunnel segment to the first turn, not
the next segment burrow, let alone the final burrow chamber with its potentially
yummy, tender juveniles. Gopher tortoise burrows display exactly the same sort of
strategy, in which these at first run straight down, but then turn abruptly to the right
or left within a meter or so from the entrance.
What made everything even more groundbreaking than the burrowing nature
of the dinosaur was that the dinosaur itself was a new species. Based on its anatom-
ical traits, it was sufficiently different from other hypsilophodont dinosaurs that it
warranted its own unique name before we revealed it to the rest of the world. This
took much deliberation of Greek and Latin roots, which we discussed via e-mail
with the discoverer of the dinosaur and our co-author, Yoshi Katsura (who was in
Japan), and a paleontologist friend of mine who was an expert on the rules of no-
menclature, AndyRindsberg(whowasinthefaraway andexotic landofAlabama).
Eventually, Dave, Yoshi, and I agreed on the name
Oryctodromeus cubicularis
,
which literally translates to “running digger of the den,” a unique name that would
signify how this dinosaur was capable of digging and denning, but also could run
about on two legs.
So just to summarize, we had the following:
