One week left. Before I get into an analysis, here’s a leaked photo of a dromaeosaur, which seems to be Deinonychus. Locations around the US like Yale are having an advanced screening of episode 6.
Today I find out what this little dinosaur is, which seems to be an infant.
The little guy is shown to be a quadruped, but briefly stands up on two legs as it runs away from the unidentified theropod in the background. At first glance, one might think it is a kind of hypsilophodont, but there is a noticeable absence of a beak or a duckbill on its mouth. Ruling out marginocephalians and thyreophorans and ornithopods, we can safely assume that it is not an ornithischian dinosaur. This brings us to the conclusion that it is either a kind of theropod or a sauropodomorph.
However, a theropod seems quite unlikely for this animal. Although it stands and runs away on two legs, it only does so for about a second, then it drops down onto four again. It also has a tuatara-like head, which doesn’t really fit with the skulls of any major theropod group like carcharodontosaurs, so the next assumption would be that it is a sauropodomorph. This is supported by its fairly long neck and quadrupedalism. The locomotion on both two and four legs could mean that the small dinosaur could in fact be some kind of prosauropod, like Plateosaurus or Mussaurus. This seems to be the most likely theory, but the large theropod feet in the background kind of says otherwise. Prosauropods were around at a time when theropods didn’t exactly grow to a large size. The largest in the Early Jurassic was Cryolophosaurus, so it’s possible that the small dinosaur could be a young Glacialisaurus. What do you think the small dinosaur could be.
