April 26, 2011 • 24 mins
Although scientists still aren't sure exactly how dinosaurs reproduced, fascinating (and surprising) conjectures abound. Join Robert and Julie as they explore the procedures experts use to recreate the lives of dinosaurs, from the fossil record to DNA.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Julie Douglas. And
you know, Julie, there's something kind of irritating about any
of these instances that you frequently find it on the
(00:24):
Internet where someone will take something beloved from your childhood
and they'll twist it into some sort of perverse joke
or some sort of uh or something sexy and uh
and it's and you're just like, no, no, that's this
is a part of my childhood that I hold dear
And I don't want to think about Fred flint Stone
in this way or cats that look like Hitler. Yeah,
that kind of don't don't mix. Don't turn this innocent, uh,
(00:47):
you know, nicety from my past into a dark carnival
of the soul um. And and another area that interesting
comes up and and this, and this is a perfectly
legitimate um collision of of the growing up world in
the outhood world is the question of dinosaurs having sex
with one another. See even right there, I'm like, really,
(01:08):
my friend Brontosaurus, I know at Potosaurus, but I will
continue to call brontosaurs, brontosaurs because again from my childhood,
I cannot imagine brontosaurus kicking boots, you know, because these
these were our friends when we're kids, you know, these
little plastic dinosaurs. If you're like me, you you memorized
all their names. Are a lot of their names and uh,
(01:30):
and you had a big box full of them and
you get them out and they Yeah, they'd wrestle each
other and they bite each other, and and the t
rex would stab I mean the the try saratops would
stab the t rex in the gut, and the t
rex would try and bite the back of the the
the the trisatops head. Uh. Good times. Yeah, these were
good times. And never did you imagine that one day
that you would go on the internet and just do
(01:52):
a simple search for like donosaur mating and find a
photo gallery of dinosaurs do in it. Yeah, And it's
it's interesting because with normal animals, I mean, everybody grows
up say loving, loving, like little girls love horses, and
guys love lizards and stuff, uh in other animals as well,
(02:12):
and then you go to the zoo and something weird
is lable to happen, like especially if you go to
like the Georgia aquarium um, which is which is, which
is awesome place. But occasionally you'll see one of the
Beloogle whales um, you know, slip out of court screwed
penis and go chasing one of the other whales around,
and you know, their children watching and and to you know,
(02:33):
to to paraphrase arrested development. You know, bam, I'm all
grown up now seeing that. So so since you just
had that experience, right that Surgi aquariums, do you feel
like we we could probably talk about dyno sex. Yeah,
it's uh, because we've got to the point where I
mean we're a we're able to we have enough data
to sort of ask these questions anyway, if not necessarily
(02:56):
answered them. And also, reproduction is is a idle if
not the vital part of any organism's life. Well, and
if you think about domospaurs too, that I mean, they
primarily dominated the landscape for a hundred million years right
so or thereabouts um in terms of domination, So obviously
they were doing something right in terms of reproduction. It's
(03:18):
just so very difficult to really pin it down like
exactly how they were they were doing this. But it's
also kind of fascinating because we don't know exactly, We've
got some interesting theories. So before we get get back
into the the grizzly details of the Jurassic Sorry, I
had to do it. The brown chicken brown cow thing. No, No,
(03:42):
that was them. Sorry, that was a naughty music sound that. Yeah,
the brown chicken brown It's like a joke about like,
oh man, I forget how the joke goes now, but
this the punchline is this brown chicken, brown cow, and
you're supposed to say it like brown chicken mank out
like that. Yeah. I totally butchered that joke though, so
(04:04):
my apologies. I don't even Yeah, I'm quite sure it
is and I love it. But anyway, so, um, how
do we know anything about what dinosaurs there, any prehistoric
creature did or did not do. I mean, it all
comes down to it's kind of like solving a crime. Um.
There are several different ways of figuring figuring out what happens,
several different lens as we look through, um they're out. Yeah,
(04:29):
they depend on. First, there's cladistics, which is a method
of hypothesizing relationships among organisms. You can think of it
as creating a family tree with blank spaces for unknown ancestors.
They also turned to molecular sequencing, in which they revealed
the hierarchy of relationships among different organisms by comparing their
molecular details. So think of it again as a family tree,
(04:50):
only this time using DNA evidence to figure out what
goes where on the chart. And then there's the fossil record,
which is quite incomplete. I mean by that's just the
fossil record, um, and it's important. Sometimes people will criticize that, like, oh, well,
you know, the fossil records incomplete. How you can improve
this that or the other. Well, that's because we're using
it along with other tools. Well, and it's a blueprint
(05:11):
of sorts, right, so you've got to go along something here. Yeah,
so here's the reason it's incomplete, or the primary reason.
Sediment has to cover an organisms remains in order for
the long fossilization process to begin, and and most organisms
decomposed before this can happen. I mean, think of it.
You're some sort of prehistoric creature out there. Um, you've
got to be covered in and basically covered in mud
(05:34):
after you die for your for your form to be
preserved in fossil. So if you if you live in
the mud, great, you've got to you've got a leg
up on this fossilization process. But if you live in
the desert, maybe not, or if you only occasionally go
near the water to drink, then you've got to. It's
a question of dying it just the right moment and
(05:55):
just the right circumstances. And so that that's why like lebytes,
the ancient marine anthropod Um are a rather common fossil,
while I t rex is uh is far rare because
it's large, it's land dwelling, and it's a top predator.
So there's very small percentage of the population troll bytes everywhere,
(06:15):
but a t rex. Think of it like a pyramid,
Like the t rex is at the very top, and
like for everyone t rex, there's gotta be the next
level is of predators and praise a little larger in
the one pople that is a little larger all the
way down to your you know, to the all the
different herbivores that they eat, and then the grass that
the herbivores eat. So your t rex, your top predator
(06:36):
fossils are pretty rare, and so so you know, even
rare that you would find evidence of, say a t
rex engage in a particular activity, especially especially sex. Also,
fossils may be set in stone, but they're not figuratively
set in stone because they can they can be destroyed.
(06:56):
And then there's all there are a lot of fossils
that we haven't found and will never find. Like if
there's a fossil of of two t rex doing it
and it just happens to be on the earth under
say the Vatican, we're probably never going to get that fossil.
That's just build built that. Yeah. Yeah, So it's a question, right,
the soft tissue preservation, right and actually having um reproductive
(07:19):
organs intact, which is yes, I mean that's never even
been found in a dinosaur before. Right, Well, um, there
are some cases of some soft tissue. Uh, there are
some cases of soft tissue which would probably make from
a whole other podcast, but but not to the point
where they're able to say, hey, look at this, this
is a a dinosaur sex organs. Right, yeah. Yeah, so
(07:42):
it's not so complete that you could go, oh, there
there's the penis. Yeah. It tends to be more like,
for instance, finding that there's still some soft tissue available
in the middle of a bone. It's and that's a
very slightly controversial study, but yeah, for the most part,
we're finding bone because these dinosaurs also remember, I mean
(08:03):
you had scavengers too, So something dies in in in
the world today, chances are something's going to go and
have a meal out of it. In the same held
true back then. So the thing that we can do
is to look at the common ancestors, right, for a
little bit of a clue um, in particular alligators, crocodiles,
and birds for time stars like velociraptors. Yes, and just
(08:25):
think of it. We see naked birds all the time
and there's nothing really, uh really all that scandalous about it, right,
Why because they have what is called a cloaca. That's right,
a cloaca. And this is a cloaca. How how do
we talk about cloeca? Um? It actually in Latin it
means sewer. That's a lovely introduction. Um. But it's basically
(08:49):
an opening for urine excrement and sex. And we know
that crocs have this, right, and we also know that
female titanosaurs are more like a croc. Give in the
analyzation of well preserved titanosaur eggs which are rounded like
a croc instead of oblong like a bird. So they've
sort of extrapolated with that information and said, Okay, since
(09:10):
you know the titanosaur have round eggs and they were
laid in big clumps much like crocodiles, let's take that
logic and extend it out and say that they possibly
had a kloeca like a crocodile. Dust Um. Yeah, And
and I think one way to think about cloeca is
(09:30):
to think of like Barbie and Ken and how you know,
like Barbie and Ken, I think would essentially have chloec.
So I like, okay, yeah, go ahead. And uh and
I if my my wife is probably listening to this
podcast at some point and cringing because she's she has
this weird fear of birds or she I mean, she
likes s burds, but but they kind of creep her
(09:51):
out with some of their things, like their black, beady
eyes and their beaks and their tongues and their cloeca. Yeah,
she doesn't want to know about the cloeca, right. And
there's a great, great little bit um here talking about
the possibility of dinosaurs having cloaca from Carmelow m Alfie
of Australia's Cosmos magazine, which has an online presence. It's
(10:12):
really cool as well. And this is what this author says. Quote.
If dinosaurs also had cloaca, according to theory, penetration would
have occurred when the male cloaca filled up with blood
and bulged out into the cloaca of the female, much
like a couple of plumbers plungers pushing up against each other.
And this folks is called the cloacle kiss. Yes, by
(10:34):
the way, which sounds like an std I have to say, yeah,
like kids, watch out, don't get the chloeacal kiss. Yeah yeah,
um so yeah, I mean that's you're shaking your head, um,
but that's that's what the cloaca is, or that what's
they think it is in the dinosaurs and how it
may have um operated, so to speak. And also we
should say here too that within the cloaca for the male,
(10:57):
the penis would have been concealed. Um if if dinosaurs
in fact had penises, I mean there's a there's a
possibility that they actually just ejected semen from one cloaca
to the other, you know, actually in that whole sort
of with the plumber plunging. Uh set up that you
just talked about. So it's basically sort of like backing
(11:20):
up the cloacas next to each other. Picturing in my
mind now it's and ejecting from one cloaca to the other.
This is science. Sometimes sciences is pretty gross. It is again,
this is why it's like, oh dinosaurs really yeah, Um,
well you talk about the possibility of dinosaurs actually having
a member as it were. Um. The late British paleontologist L.
(11:42):
Beverlely Housta wrote back in that that he thought that
they might if they were humped like birds. They'd have
to get past that big, powerful tail in order to
do it, so they would need to have a corkscrew
shaped penis about three meters long. But then house goes
on to say, quote, yet, there is no evidence that
(12:03):
they had such a grandiose organ. Maybe they lay side
to side, male to pour it in female to starboard
and sort of snuggled up together bottom to bottom. Oh yeah.
There are all sorts of different positions that people have
imagined for this, Like I've heard like house cat position.
Housecat get down on the elbows and then raised the
(12:25):
hind quarters up in the air, so like when you
pett a cat in there but comes right right, goes
hey French my butt. Um, not that the dinosaurs would
be saying that. I guess if you petting them on
the head. I don't know. I mean it depends, like
which are we talking about staka sours here, because I
mean just even the act of petting could be dangerous.
White And this is another reason why it's kind of
(12:47):
hard for us to wrap our minds around it. One
because of course we're coming at this as mammals, right,
We've got our own ideas of how sex happens. But
another is because we know that all the different plates
and the pointy parts depending on the dinosaur, can really
make the act difficult. So again that's why the all
these different theories behind mount is one that is really
(13:09):
very popular. Um, it's thought that light giraffes and elephants
that this would be the most common position. But it's
also pointed out, as you pointed out, that thick tails,
plates and uh weight distribution would make this really difficult. Yeah,
weight is a big one, um, and then just general size,
like there's some discussions about how like saying a long
neck dinosaur like Arnosaurus. Yeah, there are some some discussions that, well,
(13:33):
it could do it from behind, but it would need
to keep its head horizontal because it went vertical. Uh,
then blood flow would be an issue. But then again,
the giraffe is a classic example of how even with
that long neck, it has special adaptations that allow it
to continually pump blood to the brain. Has a giant heart. Yeah, yeah,
there's just such such a giant heart. It's such a
(13:54):
giant hearted creature. Um. And then there's also scientific paper
and tied fusion of caudal vertebrae in late Jurassic sauropods,
so again we're talking about brnosaurs here. Um. They found
that the fusions of the tail vertebrae closest to the
pelvic girdle were calming among these types of dinosaurs, possibly
so that their tails wouldn't snap off during mating. So
(14:17):
it's this kind of fusion that could might only occur
in female dinosaurs that could lift their tails and arch
during mating, but their tails don't snap off because of
interesting too, of their tail snapped off like lizards. No, no, no,
I mean this is the idea here, is that the
fusion was a little bit wonky right on that vertebrates
said that they could get that arch in the tail,
(14:38):
So that's that's a theory. Another theory is that I
like to call the hot tup theory. Oh, this is
because of their weight in size, right, yeah, yeah, A
lot larger diners, right, if they're weighing around a hundred
thousand pounds, would have the most difficult time in mounting
um without crushing each other, right or maiming each other.
So it's thought that they would go like light crocs,
(14:59):
that they would just float in the water and that
would give them some buoyancy and kind of give them
a more gentle way to dock their cloaca so speak um.
And then there's anything you already mentioned it too. There's
just sort of a spooning action they could have laid
down on their sides or belly to belly. That's adorable.
The idea of dinosaur spinning. Yeah, that one I can
(15:20):
cotton too, because that doesn't seem too graphic. Yeah um.
And it seems like they'd have some nice pillow talk
there too. Yeah. And then there's another one that seems
This one I really kind of it seems simple enough,
but I keep trying to imagine it. It's sort of
a backing it up position, which they face opposite directions
and then they back up into each other and again
(15:41):
they align the cloaca. Okay, now there there are some
animals that end up in that alignment in the wild.
I believe cloaca. But yeah, anyway, I think I saw
the Nature video once. But yeah, well, I mean, you know,
it's a it's again, these are awkward thing. I mean,
it doesn't make up I have to say, it doesn't
(16:01):
make dinosaurs sex seem all that like, wow, dinosaurs they
were really yeah, romantic. It's one. I mean, it just
kind of underlines how all reproduction is kind of weird.
You know, it's just kind of weird and messy and
and uh and and not all that dignified. So we
hate to make of our our childhood friends engaging in
(16:24):
this kind of activity. But the hot tub part, I
mean that doesn't seem so bad, right, Okay, the hot
tub thing I guess could could work. It's you know,
it's it's kind of like they're flying. It's witless and beautiful,
right right. They could be looking up at the moon
and stars reciting poetry to so maybe they do that
and then they spin on the shore. Yeah, there you go. Yeah,
it's it's it's the plunging in the cloaca and the
(16:45):
backing app that seems a little awkward, I think. Um,
but you know, we should probably talk a little bit
about some courtship rituals too. Oh yeah, because you know,
whether they're not just doing it, they're they're probably engaging
in some sort of activity. I mean esp Actually when
you look at if you look at any kinship to birds,
I mean, birds have some of the most spectacular courtship
(17:06):
rituals imaginable. Um, you know, just watch a few episodes
of of of Edinburgh's The Life of Birds and you'll
see activity. They're just like wow, these guys really yeah,
they make it sexy, right yeah, I mean like all
sorts of plumage calls, building little dances, building a little
structures that have been decorated to woo their mate. I
(17:29):
mean it really gets phenomenal. Right, it's very cool. And
again we don't know so much about what Donostaus might
have done, but we can think about again, like you know,
sore pod like Brontosaurus, patosaurrosye Um, long tails, long necks,
it's very possible that they might have done some sort
of dance in which they intertwined their next sex. A
(17:52):
sexy dance is slow dance like a Valentine's Day, uh
dance together I don't know, um, you know fifth grade,
you know, hearts all around them, um, but in their
tails intertwining too. So and then again with the males
and the next it's very possible that they monif use
those to tussle with other males or to hurt other
males away so that they'd have less competition with the
(18:14):
female they were trying to meet with. I like the
idea of like a fearsome t rex, like spending hours
and hours and hours doing some sort of silly, tedious
stance to try and woo a mate, you know. I
like the idea with like the like the short little
arms doing some sort of like I don't know, um,
like you know, neck and pop them locking thing. I
don't know, well that that would That's the problem too
(18:36):
with the the t rex arms, because they have those
two little fingers, so it looks like they're doing ironic
quotation marks. Every time they say anything. They're like, I
really love you, and then then the other dinosaur gets
all up in arms because they are like, oh you
love me, great, I'm going to go mate with this
other t rex. Right, So we think communication is hard
now yeah, I mean think about it then, um and
(18:57):
then some other folks too. If you think about the
source and the pellys Sosaurus, those are the thin back
a lizard looking dinosaurs. Oh yes, like the like was
it demetri done? Oh? Man? See the eight year old
me would would be great on this podcast because you
remember that because there were two. There was the cool
looking one and the kind of plumper looking one, and
(19:18):
one was a carnivore and one was the eight year
old you. Right now, I would be crying under the
like what are you talking about? What do you mean
they're having sex? Um? But yeah, I mean these these
are the crest. They're they're really or neat and the
researchers think that they've actually they had developed as a
way to woo the ladies. Actually because the crest becat
(19:40):
bigger and bigger and bigger over time and they really
didn't serve any function. I mean think about hauling that
sort of crest on your back all the time. Well,
I have heard that the crest could have been used
for to to warm the blood. You send the blood
up through those veins, the veins and that crest, and
then the sunlight has more ready access. Well, this one,
(20:01):
they were saying that because it kept getting larger and larger,
they were they were looking at more like plumage um
and also that they could you know, maybe even use
that to sort of look like they're bowing up against
another um would be suitor. So again, if you look
at all these ridges and these plates that are on
a lot of the dinosaurs, many of them could be used, um,
(20:23):
you know, to fight off of our dinosaurs. And we
already know that right now, but in the courtship ritual,
certainly it could be like, hey, look at my nice ridges,
my nice crests. So there you go with that. Well,
there you have it, dinosaur sex. So hopefully we have
illuminated and enlightened more than we've tarnished dreams and childhood memories. Yeah. Well,
(20:45):
I will say that there's one thing that I want
to talk about just to just to maybe charnish the
dreams a little bit more. One of the things we
do know for sure is that scientists can get a
rough idea of how old fossils are by then the
bone micro structure for the growth rings, sort of like
if you look at tree. And what they found is
that females began to produce eggs much more before they
(21:06):
reached full maturity. So this is a quote from the
Smiths smith sony and article Everything You Ever Wanted to
Know about Dinosaur sex. They say that these dinosaurs grew
fast and became teen moms. Yeah, so we do know
that they were doing this early. And the idea is
that if if you didn't have a long life span,
obviously you try to get your geens out there as
quickly as possible. So yeah, so we we have these
(21:31):
Megan Love Dinosaurs team moms going on. There's the full
tarnish right there. Wow, I'm all growing up now. Well,
well cool, Well, hey, I have some listener mail here
regarding our discussion of more contemporary animals. Hi, Robert and Julie.
I'm a big fan of your podcast and it helps
(21:52):
keep me entertained during long hours on the road from
my job. I have one small correction for you. In
the recent episode, does your Dog Really Love You? I
think Roberts had Boxer when he meant bulldog boxers were
originally bred as hunting dogs, and bulldogs were used to
herd bulls and slaughterhouses. When he mentioned the dog being
a mascot at football games, I knew he meant bulldogs
because of you g A's mascot hugga um, which is
(22:15):
you you know said yeah and the dog's famous bugga
yeah Uh. They're the ones who have been more deformed
by our breeding by breeding them shorter, squatter, and with
a more more pushed up faces that make them prone
to overheating. Thanks for a great show, Bonnie. Ps. Rob
Please pick up bananas at the store in your way, Hume,
because that was my wife who wrote that one, so yes,
(22:37):
I'll get those banana That's nice that she wrote in
That's good. And here's another one related to the dog podcast,
and this one is from a listener by the name
of Katie. Katie says, hey, Robert and Julie. In the
Does Your Dog Really Love You? Podcast? You mentioned a
woman who writes books with her cat, but couldn't remember
(22:58):
her name. You've probab We've gotten responses to this already,
but I think who you're talking about is Rita may
Brown and her cat, Sneaky Pie. Brown. I listened to
her audio books and think they're pretty good. She always
gives credit to her cat in the books and often
puts them as co author. Sometimes she writes afterwards from
the cat's perspective, It's kind of strange but also kind
(23:19):
of endearing. Anyway, I love the podcast. Yeah, I'm really
curious about this books. Now I have to check it out. Yes,
read those I will. Okay, So hey, if you have
any cool tidbits to share with us, uh you can,
or just want to see what we're up to, what
we're reading, what we're talking about. You can find us
on Facebook and Twitter as below the Mind, or just
(23:42):
throw that into a Google search Blow the Mind one
word and Twitter or Facebook, whatever you're looking for and
uh dropping and see us. And if you want to
send us a note about dashing your dinosaur dreams, you
can do so at blow the Mind at how stuffworks
dot com from are on this and thousands of other topics.
Visit how stuff works dot com to learn more about
(24:04):
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Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Julie Douglas. And
you know, Julie, there's something kind of irritating about any
of these instances that you frequently find it on the
(00:24):
Internet where someone will take something beloved from your childhood
and they'll twist it into some sort of perverse joke
or some sort of uh or something sexy and uh
and it's and you're just like, no, no, that's this
is a part of my childhood that I hold dear
And I don't want to think about Fred flint Stone
in this way or cats that look like Hitler. Yeah,
that kind of don't don't mix. Don't turn this innocent, uh,
(00:47):
you know, nicety from my past into a dark carnival
of the soul um. And and another area that interesting
comes up and and this, and this is a perfectly
legitimate um collision of of the growing up world in
the outhood world is the question of dinosaurs having sex
with one another. See even right there, I'm like, really,
(01:08):
my friend Brontosaurus, I know at Potosaurus, but I will
continue to call brontosaurs, brontosaurs because again from my childhood,
I cannot imagine brontosaurus kicking boots, you know, because these
these were our friends when we're kids, you know, these
little plastic dinosaurs. If you're like me, you you memorized
all their names. Are a lot of their names and uh,
(01:30):
and you had a big box full of them and
you get them out and they Yeah, they'd wrestle each
other and they bite each other, and and the t
rex would stab I mean the the try saratops would
stab the t rex in the gut, and the t
rex would try and bite the back of the the
the the trisatops head. Uh. Good times. Yeah, these were
good times. And never did you imagine that one day
that you would go on the internet and just do
(01:52):
a simple search for like donosaur mating and find a
photo gallery of dinosaurs do in it. Yeah, And it's
it's interesting because with normal animals, I mean, everybody grows
up say loving, loving, like little girls love horses, and
guys love lizards and stuff, uh in other animals as well,
(02:12):
and then you go to the zoo and something weird
is lable to happen, like especially if you go to
like the Georgia aquarium um, which is which is, which
is awesome place. But occasionally you'll see one of the
Beloogle whales um, you know, slip out of court screwed
penis and go chasing one of the other whales around,
and you know, their children watching and and to you know,
(02:33):
to to paraphrase arrested development. You know, bam, I'm all
grown up now seeing that. So so since you just
had that experience, right that Surgi aquariums, do you feel
like we we could probably talk about dyno sex. Yeah,
it's uh, because we've got to the point where I
mean we're a we're able to we have enough data
to sort of ask these questions anyway, if not necessarily
(02:56):
answered them. And also, reproduction is is a idle if
not the vital part of any organism's life. Well, and
if you think about domospaurs too, that I mean, they
primarily dominated the landscape for a hundred million years right
so or thereabouts um in terms of domination, So obviously
they were doing something right in terms of reproduction. It's
(03:18):
just so very difficult to really pin it down like
exactly how they were they were doing this. But it's
also kind of fascinating because we don't know exactly, We've
got some interesting theories. So before we get get back
into the the grizzly details of the Jurassic Sorry, I
had to do it. The brown chicken brown cow thing. No, No,
(03:42):
that was them. Sorry, that was a naughty music sound that. Yeah,
the brown chicken brown It's like a joke about like,
oh man, I forget how the joke goes now, but
this the punchline is this brown chicken, brown cow, and
you're supposed to say it like brown chicken mank out
like that. Yeah. I totally butchered that joke though, so
(04:04):
my apologies. I don't even Yeah, I'm quite sure it
is and I love it. But anyway, so, um, how
do we know anything about what dinosaurs there, any prehistoric
creature did or did not do. I mean, it all
comes down to it's kind of like solving a crime. Um.
There are several different ways of figuring figuring out what happens,
several different lens as we look through, um they're out. Yeah,
(04:29):
they depend on. First, there's cladistics, which is a method
of hypothesizing relationships among organisms. You can think of it
as creating a family tree with blank spaces for unknown ancestors.
They also turned to molecular sequencing, in which they revealed
the hierarchy of relationships among different organisms by comparing their
molecular details. So think of it again as a family tree,
(04:50):
only this time using DNA evidence to figure out what
goes where on the chart. And then there's the fossil record,
which is quite incomplete. I mean by that's just the
fossil record, um, and it's important. Sometimes people will criticize that, like, oh, well,
you know, the fossil records incomplete. How you can improve
this that or the other. Well, that's because we're using
it along with other tools. Well, and it's a blueprint
(05:11):
of sorts, right, so you've got to go along something here. Yeah,
so here's the reason it's incomplete, or the primary reason.
Sediment has to cover an organisms remains in order for
the long fossilization process to begin, and and most organisms
decomposed before this can happen. I mean, think of it.
You're some sort of prehistoric creature out there. Um, you've
got to be covered in and basically covered in mud
(05:34):
after you die for your for your form to be
preserved in fossil. So if you if you live in
the mud, great, you've got to you've got a leg
up on this fossilization process. But if you live in
the desert, maybe not, or if you only occasionally go
near the water to drink, then you've got to. It's
a question of dying it just the right moment and
(05:55):
just the right circumstances. And so that that's why like lebytes,
the ancient marine anthropod Um are a rather common fossil,
while I t rex is uh is far rare because
it's large, it's land dwelling, and it's a top predator.
So there's very small percentage of the population troll bytes everywhere,
(06:15):
but a t rex. Think of it like a pyramid,
Like the t rex is at the very top, and
like for everyone t rex, there's gotta be the next
level is of predators and praise a little larger in
the one pople that is a little larger all the
way down to your you know, to the all the
different herbivores that they eat, and then the grass that
the herbivores eat. So your t rex, your top predator
(06:36):
fossils are pretty rare, and so so you know, even
rare that you would find evidence of, say a t
rex engage in a particular activity, especially especially sex. Also,
fossils may be set in stone, but they're not figuratively
set in stone because they can they can be destroyed.
(06:56):
And then there's all there are a lot of fossils
that we haven't found and will never find. Like if
there's a fossil of of two t rex doing it
and it just happens to be on the earth under
say the Vatican, we're probably never going to get that fossil.
That's just build built that. Yeah. Yeah, So it's a question, right,
the soft tissue preservation, right and actually having um reproductive
(07:19):
organs intact, which is yes, I mean that's never even
been found in a dinosaur before. Right, Well, um, there
are some cases of some soft tissue. Uh, there are
some cases of soft tissue which would probably make from
a whole other podcast, but but not to the point
where they're able to say, hey, look at this, this
is a a dinosaur sex organs. Right, yeah. Yeah, so
(07:42):
it's not so complete that you could go, oh, there
there's the penis. Yeah. It tends to be more like,
for instance, finding that there's still some soft tissue available
in the middle of a bone. It's and that's a
very slightly controversial study, but yeah, for the most part,
we're finding bone because these dinosaurs also remember, I mean
(08:03):
you had scavengers too, So something dies in in in
the world today, chances are something's going to go and
have a meal out of it. In the same held
true back then. So the thing that we can do
is to look at the common ancestors, right, for a
little bit of a clue um, in particular alligators, crocodiles,
and birds for time stars like velociraptors. Yes, and just
(08:25):
think of it. We see naked birds all the time
and there's nothing really, uh really all that scandalous about it, right,
Why because they have what is called a cloaca. That's right,
a cloaca. And this is a cloaca. How how do
we talk about cloeca? Um? It actually in Latin it
means sewer. That's a lovely introduction. Um. But it's basically
(08:49):
an opening for urine excrement and sex. And we know
that crocs have this, right, and we also know that
female titanosaurs are more like a croc. Give in the
analyzation of well preserved titanosaur eggs which are rounded like
a croc instead of oblong like a bird. So they've
sort of extrapolated with that information and said, Okay, since
(09:10):
you know the titanosaur have round eggs and they were
laid in big clumps much like crocodiles, let's take that
logic and extend it out and say that they possibly
had a kloeca like a crocodile. Dust Um. Yeah, And
and I think one way to think about cloeca is
(09:30):
to think of like Barbie and Ken and how you know,
like Barbie and Ken, I think would essentially have chloec.
So I like, okay, yeah, go ahead. And uh and
I if my my wife is probably listening to this
podcast at some point and cringing because she's she has
this weird fear of birds or she I mean, she
likes s burds, but but they kind of creep her
(09:51):
out with some of their things, like their black, beady
eyes and their beaks and their tongues and their cloeca. Yeah,
she doesn't want to know about the cloeca, right. And
there's a great, great little bit um here talking about
the possibility of dinosaurs having cloaca from Carmelow m Alfie
of Australia's Cosmos magazine, which has an online presence. It's
(10:12):
really cool as well. And this is what this author says. Quote.
If dinosaurs also had cloaca, according to theory, penetration would
have occurred when the male cloaca filled up with blood
and bulged out into the cloaca of the female, much
like a couple of plumbers plungers pushing up against each other.
And this folks is called the cloacle kiss. Yes, by
(10:34):
the way, which sounds like an std I have to say, yeah,
like kids, watch out, don't get the chloeacal kiss. Yeah yeah,
um so yeah, I mean that's you're shaking your head, um,
but that's that's what the cloaca is, or that what's
they think it is in the dinosaurs and how it
may have um operated, so to speak. And also we
should say here too that within the cloaca for the male,
(10:57):
the penis would have been concealed. Um if if dinosaurs
in fact had penises, I mean there's a there's a
possibility that they actually just ejected semen from one cloaca
to the other, you know, actually in that whole sort
of with the plumber plunging. Uh set up that you
just talked about. So it's basically sort of like backing
(11:20):
up the cloacas next to each other. Picturing in my
mind now it's and ejecting from one cloaca to the other.
This is science. Sometimes sciences is pretty gross. It is again,
this is why it's like, oh dinosaurs really yeah, Um,
well you talk about the possibility of dinosaurs actually having
a member as it were. Um. The late British paleontologist L.
(11:42):
Beverlely Housta wrote back in that that he thought that
they might if they were humped like birds. They'd have
to get past that big, powerful tail in order to
do it, so they would need to have a corkscrew
shaped penis about three meters long. But then house goes
on to say, quote, yet, there is no evidence that
(12:03):
they had such a grandiose organ. Maybe they lay side
to side, male to pour it in female to starboard
and sort of snuggled up together bottom to bottom. Oh yeah.
There are all sorts of different positions that people have
imagined for this, Like I've heard like house cat position.
Housecat get down on the elbows and then raised the
(12:25):
hind quarters up in the air, so like when you
pett a cat in there but comes right right, goes
hey French my butt. Um, not that the dinosaurs would
be saying that. I guess if you petting them on
the head. I don't know. I mean it depends, like
which are we talking about staka sours here, because I
mean just even the act of petting could be dangerous.
White And this is another reason why it's kind of
(12:47):
hard for us to wrap our minds around it. One
because of course we're coming at this as mammals, right,
We've got our own ideas of how sex happens. But
another is because we know that all the different plates
and the pointy parts depending on the dinosaur, can really
make the act difficult. So again that's why the all
these different theories behind mount is one that is really
(13:09):
very popular. Um, it's thought that light giraffes and elephants
that this would be the most common position. But it's
also pointed out, as you pointed out, that thick tails,
plates and uh weight distribution would make this really difficult. Yeah,
weight is a big one, um, and then just general size,
like there's some discussions about how like saying a long
neck dinosaur like Arnosaurus. Yeah, there are some some discussions that, well,
(13:33):
it could do it from behind, but it would need
to keep its head horizontal because it went vertical. Uh,
then blood flow would be an issue. But then again,
the giraffe is a classic example of how even with
that long neck, it has special adaptations that allow it
to continually pump blood to the brain. Has a giant heart. Yeah, yeah,
there's just such such a giant heart. It's such a
(13:54):
giant hearted creature. Um. And then there's also scientific paper
and tied fusion of caudal vertebrae in late Jurassic sauropods,
so again we're talking about brnosaurs here. Um. They found
that the fusions of the tail vertebrae closest to the
pelvic girdle were calming among these types of dinosaurs, possibly
so that their tails wouldn't snap off during mating. So
(14:17):
it's this kind of fusion that could might only occur
in female dinosaurs that could lift their tails and arch
during mating, but their tails don't snap off because of
interesting too, of their tail snapped off like lizards. No, no, no,
I mean this is the idea here, is that the
fusion was a little bit wonky right on that vertebrates
said that they could get that arch in the tail,
(14:38):
So that's that's a theory. Another theory is that I
like to call the hot tup theory. Oh, this is
because of their weight in size, right, yeah, yeah, A
lot larger diners, right, if they're weighing around a hundred
thousand pounds, would have the most difficult time in mounting
um without crushing each other, right or maiming each other.
So it's thought that they would go like light crocs,
(14:59):
that they would just float in the water and that
would give them some buoyancy and kind of give them
a more gentle way to dock their cloaca so speak um.
And then there's anything you already mentioned it too. There's
just sort of a spooning action they could have laid
down on their sides or belly to belly. That's adorable.
The idea of dinosaur spinning. Yeah, that one I can
(15:20):
cotton too, because that doesn't seem too graphic. Yeah um.
And it seems like they'd have some nice pillow talk
there too. Yeah. And then there's another one that seems
This one I really kind of it seems simple enough,
but I keep trying to imagine it. It's sort of
a backing it up position, which they face opposite directions
and then they back up into each other and again
(15:41):
they align the cloaca. Okay, now there there are some
animals that end up in that alignment in the wild.
I believe cloaca. But yeah, anyway, I think I saw
the Nature video once. But yeah, well, I mean, you know,
it's a it's again, these are awkward thing. I mean,
it doesn't make up I have to say, it doesn't
(16:01):
make dinosaurs sex seem all that like, wow, dinosaurs they
were really yeah, romantic. It's one. I mean, it just
kind of underlines how all reproduction is kind of weird.
You know, it's just kind of weird and messy and
and uh and and not all that dignified. So we
hate to make of our our childhood friends engaging in
(16:24):
this kind of activity. But the hot tub part, I
mean that doesn't seem so bad, right, Okay, the hot
tub thing I guess could could work. It's you know,
it's it's kind of like they're flying. It's witless and beautiful,
right right. They could be looking up at the moon
and stars reciting poetry to so maybe they do that
and then they spin on the shore. Yeah, there you go. Yeah,
it's it's it's the plunging in the cloaca and the
(16:45):
backing app that seems a little awkward, I think. Um,
but you know, we should probably talk a little bit
about some courtship rituals too. Oh yeah, because you know,
whether they're not just doing it, they're they're probably engaging
in some sort of activity. I mean esp Actually when
you look at if you look at any kinship to birds,
I mean, birds have some of the most spectacular courtship
(17:06):
rituals imaginable. Um, you know, just watch a few episodes
of of of Edinburgh's The Life of Birds and you'll
see activity. They're just like wow, these guys really yeah,
they make it sexy, right yeah, I mean like all
sorts of plumage calls, building little dances, building a little
structures that have been decorated to woo their mate. I
(17:29):
mean it really gets phenomenal. Right, it's very cool. And
again we don't know so much about what Donostaus might
have done, but we can think about again, like you know,
sore pod like Brontosaurus, patosaurrosye Um, long tails, long necks,
it's very possible that they might have done some sort
of dance in which they intertwined their next sex. A
(17:52):
sexy dance is slow dance like a Valentine's Day, uh
dance together I don't know, um, you know fifth grade,
you know, hearts all around them, um, but in their
tails intertwining too. So and then again with the males
and the next it's very possible that they monif use
those to tussle with other males or to hurt other
males away so that they'd have less competition with the
(18:14):
female they were trying to meet with. I like the
idea of like a fearsome t rex, like spending hours
and hours and hours doing some sort of silly, tedious
stance to try and woo a mate, you know. I
like the idea with like the like the short little
arms doing some sort of like I don't know, um,
like you know, neck and pop them locking thing. I
don't know, well that that would That's the problem too
(18:36):
with the the t rex arms, because they have those
two little fingers, so it looks like they're doing ironic
quotation marks. Every time they say anything. They're like, I
really love you, and then then the other dinosaur gets
all up in arms because they are like, oh you
love me, great, I'm going to go mate with this
other t rex. Right, So we think communication is hard
now yeah, I mean think about it then, um and
(18:57):
then some other folks too. If you think about the
source and the pellys Sosaurus, those are the thin back
a lizard looking dinosaurs. Oh yes, like the like was
it demetri done? Oh? Man? See the eight year old
me would would be great on this podcast because you
remember that because there were two. There was the cool
looking one and the kind of plumper looking one, and
(19:18):
one was a carnivore and one was the eight year
old you. Right now, I would be crying under the
like what are you talking about? What do you mean
they're having sex? Um? But yeah, I mean these these
are the crest. They're they're really or neat and the
researchers think that they've actually they had developed as a
way to woo the ladies. Actually because the crest becat
(19:40):
bigger and bigger and bigger over time and they really
didn't serve any function. I mean think about hauling that
sort of crest on your back all the time. Well,
I have heard that the crest could have been used
for to to warm the blood. You send the blood
up through those veins, the veins and that crest, and
then the sunlight has more ready access. Well, this one,
(20:01):
they were saying that because it kept getting larger and larger,
they were they were looking at more like plumage um
and also that they could you know, maybe even use
that to sort of look like they're bowing up against
another um would be suitor. So again, if you look
at all these ridges and these plates that are on
a lot of the dinosaurs, many of them could be used, um,
(20:23):
you know, to fight off of our dinosaurs. And we
already know that right now, but in the courtship ritual,
certainly it could be like, hey, look at my nice ridges,
my nice crests. So there you go with that. Well,
there you have it, dinosaur sex. So hopefully we have
illuminated and enlightened more than we've tarnished dreams and childhood memories. Yeah. Well,
(20:45):
I will say that there's one thing that I want
to talk about just to just to maybe charnish the
dreams a little bit more. One of the things we
do know for sure is that scientists can get a
rough idea of how old fossils are by then the
bone micro structure for the growth rings, sort of like
if you look at tree. And what they found is
that females began to produce eggs much more before they
(21:06):
reached full maturity. So this is a quote from the
Smiths smith sony and article Everything You Ever Wanted to
Know about Dinosaur sex. They say that these dinosaurs grew
fast and became teen moms. Yeah, so we do know
that they were doing this early. And the idea is
that if if you didn't have a long life span,
obviously you try to get your geens out there as
quickly as possible. So yeah, so we we have these
(21:31):
Megan Love Dinosaurs team moms going on. There's the full
tarnish right there. Wow, I'm all growing up now. Well,
well cool, Well, hey, I have some listener mail here
regarding our discussion of more contemporary animals. Hi, Robert and Julie.
I'm a big fan of your podcast and it helps
(21:52):
keep me entertained during long hours on the road from
my job. I have one small correction for you. In
the recent episode, does your Dog Really Love You? I
think Roberts had Boxer when he meant bulldog boxers were
originally bred as hunting dogs, and bulldogs were used to
herd bulls and slaughterhouses. When he mentioned the dog being
a mascot at football games, I knew he meant bulldogs
because of you g A's mascot hugga um, which is
(22:15):
you you know said yeah and the dog's famous bugga
yeah Uh. They're the ones who have been more deformed
by our breeding by breeding them shorter, squatter, and with
a more more pushed up faces that make them prone
to overheating. Thanks for a great show, Bonnie. Ps. Rob
Please pick up bananas at the store in your way, Hume,
because that was my wife who wrote that one, so yes,
(22:37):
I'll get those banana That's nice that she wrote in
That's good. And here's another one related to the dog podcast,
and this one is from a listener by the name
of Katie. Katie says, hey, Robert and Julie. In the
Does Your Dog Really Love You? Podcast? You mentioned a
woman who writes books with her cat, but couldn't remember
(22:58):
her name. You've probab We've gotten responses to this already,
but I think who you're talking about is Rita may
Brown and her cat, Sneaky Pie. Brown. I listened to
her audio books and think they're pretty good. She always
gives credit to her cat in the books and often
puts them as co author. Sometimes she writes afterwards from
the cat's perspective, It's kind of strange but also kind
(23:19):
of endearing. Anyway, I love the podcast. Yeah, I'm really
curious about this books. Now I have to check it out. Yes,
read those I will. Okay, So hey, if you have
any cool tidbits to share with us, uh you can,
or just want to see what we're up to, what
we're reading, what we're talking about. You can find us
on Facebook and Twitter as below the Mind, or just
(23:42):
throw that into a Google search Blow the Mind one
word and Twitter or Facebook, whatever you're looking for and
uh dropping and see us. And if you want to
send us a note about dashing your dinosaur dreams, you
can do so at blow the Mind at how stuffworks
dot com from are on this and thousands of other topics.
Visit how stuff works dot com to learn more about
(24:04):
the podcast. Click on the podcast icon in the upper
right corner of our homepage. The how stuff Works iPhone
app has a ride. Download it today on iTunes
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Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
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