UCL's Centre for Integrative Anatomy (specifically the Porro Lab) and UCL’s Grant Museum of Zoology were excited to host children’s TV presenter Maddie Moate earlier in the summer.
We were helping her to deliver fun and educational segments on reptile teeth, dinosaur diets and animal brains!
Here's one of the segments, about ever-popular dinosaurs, but perhaps not as we usually know them.
Yes, we're into fluffy dinosaurs here - not the sort you can probably pick up in the shop at the Natural History Museum, but something much more authentic! In this youtube short, you can see Laura Porro explaining the extraordinary appearance of this ancient creature. Laura addresses the rather unusual question: was this the fluffiest dinosaur?! 🦖 🦕 Here's the whole video (and explanation!).https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DQsjibeT_3o
The two women point out that this fox-sized dinosaur - a heterodontosaur - as it name suggests, has differing teeth in its jaws. As can be seen clearly from a 3D-printed skull of a specimen, it starts with a beak in front, then nipping incisors, then upper and lower enlarged and serrated canine-like teeth (the function of which is uncertain but perhaps these dinosaurs sometimes ate insects or other small meaty animals), ending with molar-shaped teeth for crushing vegetation.
Another of the segments was about brains: it shows a somewhat squeamish-acting Maddie holding a pig's brain. Sadly, we can't see the actual dissection, because brains deteriorate quickly once removed from the skull (human ones for dissection are preserved in formalin first).
But it's a great little video and Maddie and Laura interact in a lively and enthusiastic way about the different parts of the brain and their functions.
They also address the question: does a bigger brain mean a more intelligent animal? Laura says that, although size does matter, it's not the only determinant of cleverness - there are other factors at play. And the biggest animals do not always have the largest brains - e.g., the horned dinosaur, Pentaceratops, which had one of the largest heads of any land-dwelling animal, had a brain only the size of two walnuts! More fascinating facts here: .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irdAxaFCrak
This video also gives a great view of the Grant Museum of Zoology interior and many of its fascinating exhibits - well worth a visit.
