A Dinosaur Tale (6/2/25)

Hey, grown-ups! Happy Dino Day! It's me, Mindy. And before we start the show, did you know that scientists actually don't know what color dinosaurs were? Yeah! Scientists make educated guesses based on fossilized feathers or skin impressions, but no one... is 100% certain what colors dinosaurs actually were when they roamed the Earth 66 million years ago.

So, when we made our own Wow in the World dinosaur toys, Guy Raz and I added a little pop of color to make those dinos really roar. Yep, that's why the Wow in the World Jumbo T-Rex... dinosaur is neon blue and purple and the baby brontosaurus in our baby dino bucket is bright orange and pink to discover even more wows about dinosaurs for the dino fans in your world Visit Amazon.com slash Wondery Kids to shop all of our colorful dinosaur toys and more coming soon.

Plus, don't forget to pre-order our newest book, Dinosaurs Are Wow. A roaring thunder of... historic wonder coming to a bookshelf near you this October. Pre-order today wherever you get your books. Just search dinosaurs are wow at your favorite retailer. That's it. And now let's get back to the show. Woo-hoo-hoo! Oh.

I've been really into dinosaurs lately, and I was thinking that maybe we could just take the wow machine back in time to go check out some ladies. Hold on a sec, Mindy. Do you hear that? He got the window here. Uh-oh. Yeah, she's just weed whacking. My grandma G-Force! As in yard work? Let me see if I can see that from my house.

Why does it look like she's wearing a rope around her waist with a battle axe tied to the end of it? Oh, that's because she's wearing a rope around her waist with a battle axe tied to the end of it. Wow, look at her spin around and swing that. We're out. really knows how to wield that thing. Does she, though? Let's get off the phone and head over there, Guy Raz. See if she needs any help whacking weeds and chopping trees. Are you sure that's a good idea, Mindy? Yes, of course I'm...

I'm not sure that's a good idea, Guy Raz. Now come on! Meet you over there in five. Bye! Grandma G-Force! What? What you got there tied around your waist? Mind if I come over and get a closer look? Hey, Mindy. Hey, G-Force. I couldn't help but notice the unconventional way you were literally attacking your yard work. Well, that's a little trick I learned from an old Aztec warrior paddling back in the day. How old are you? Mind if I get a closer look at that battle axe? Well, okay.

You know, Grandma G-Force, there are tools specifically designed for getting rid of weeds. Very interesting. Hey, Roz, come over here and get a load of this. Weed whacker of Grandma G-Forces here. Okay. Look at this. Sharp edge plates of metal fused together. and formed into a distinctive wedge shape. Yeah, this looks more like the bladed club of an ancient Mesoamerican warrior than it does a garden tool. Yeah, well, it feels more like one, too. Take that telephone pole.

Why would you do that? You know what, Guy Raz? This reminds me of a new dinosaur study that I just read in the journal Nature. Ooh, a new scientific study? Here we go.

Yeah, this group of Chilean paleontologists, you know, from the South American country of Chile. Well, I could go for some Chilean beans right about now. Well, they, along with some paleontologists... from the University of Texas recently found a whole new species of ankylosaur. Ankylosaur? You mean as in the dinosaur? Well, my ankles are sore, too. Give me yours, boy. What? No, Guy Raz is right. Ankylosaurs who roam the earth as far back as... 66 million years ago were a family of arm

were dinosaurs that were known for their short, tank-like bodies and bony, club-shaped tails. Oh, I know the dinosaurs you're talking about, Mindy. They have these four short... powerful legs and thick bony plates called osteoderms that covered their bodies and heads and, you know, come to think of it, they kind of remind me of you, G-Force. Well, thank you, boy.

I appreciate that. Or maybe more like giant SUV-sized armadillos with sledgehammers at the ends of their tails. Yeah. Well, too bad they didn't have a weed-whacking weapon tail. Like this. watch where you swing that thing. And why do you have that battle axe tied to a rope around your waist? It's my tail, boy. No, you're just swinging a battle axe from behind. No.

It's my tail! No, it's a dangerous... Okay, okay. Now, first of all, you are both right. And second of all, what Grandma G-Force has going on here with her battle axe... uh, tail is actually a lot like this new dinosaur species that was recently discovered. Booyah, boy. Huh?

And to prove it to you, I think we need to take the wow machine back to the Cretaceous period so we can see for ourselves. Well, I ain't going nowhere. I still got weeds to whack. Wait, so let me get this straight, Mindy. You want to go back in time to meet a deadly armored dinosaur face to face? Uh-huh. But... Now I'm going to run home to get my adventure toolkit and I'll meet you out at the wow machine in five minutes, okay? But how should I dress for this? Well, I suggest you wear pants.

Okay, let me just get the wow machine unlocked and opened here. All right. And opening the hatch. Okay, Ross, want to give me a hand here? So, uh... Where are we going, Mindy? Let me see here. I've got the study in my adventure toolkit somewhere. Oh, here we go. Looks like we are going back to the Cretaceous period somewhere.

between 72 and 75 million years ago. And specifically, to the southern continent of... Ooh! Gondwana! Gondwana? Is that even a real place, Mindy? No, but it was 75 million years ago. In fact, it was a southern supercontinent that included what we now know as Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica. Ah, before that supercontinent started to break apart into the continents we know today. Exactoritos.

Got it. But shouldn't we be a little more specific about where we want this WoW machine to drop us? Oh, yeah, good point. Okay, let me just see here. I think I'll plug in what is now known as Chilean... Patagonia. So, the southernmost tip of South America. Yep, right into the bed of a river delta. After all, that's where the fossils of this newly discovered species of ankylosaur were found.

I see. And if we go back in time to find this ankylosaur, then we might be able to rescue it before it becomes extinct. But, Mindy, dinosaurs went extinct about 65 million years ago. Not if we can. What? And here... butter. You okay over there, Guy Razzie? Here, let me help you shake it off and unscramble your brains a little. There you go. Ouch. Good as new.

So, did we make it to the Cretaceous period 75 million years ago? Yep, looks like this is the place. And I don't know about you, Guy Raz, but I am hungry. Let me just zoodle the best local dive to get some lunch around this place. No cell service? What? Of course there's no cell service, Mindy. No cell service, no restaurants, no people, no food. Unless you enjoy dinosaur meat. Well, I do like me some dinosaur meat.

Mindy, we're in the middle of the dinosaur ages. Look out this window. Oh, scooch over. Let me see. These blinds. There we go. Whoa. Look at that. Guy Raz? Real live dinosaurs! Hey, buddies! Hey! Hey! Mindy, stop drawing attention to ourselves. Do you know how powerful those dinosaurs are? Well, I'll tell you one thing, Guy Raz.

are not as powerful as the small but mighty dinosaur species we came to see. Come on, let's get out of this wow machine so we can go find this dinosaur for ourselves. Oh no, oh no, no, no. You want us? to go out there with the dinosaurs? Well, we're not going to just sit here and wait for the one we're looking for to waltz by. I mean, that could take like 10 million years.

I don't know about you, Guy Ross, but I am not about to risk extinction. But lucky for us, I just so happen to have some inflatable dinosaur suits in my adventure toolkit here. Some inflatable what? Hang on. Rummaging, rummaging, rummaging. Ah, cats. There's always cats in here. Rummaging. Oh, here they are. One inflatable T-Rex suit for you, Gyros. And one.

inflatable T-Rex suit for me. How do we inflate these things, Mindy? Oh, OK. So you're just going to slip it over your body like this. And then you're going to blow it up from the inside. like a balloon. And while you're doing that, I'm just gonna hook mine up to this automatic air pump over here. You have an automatic air pump? Everything's fine. Mindy! Okay, time to head out into the wild!

We just have to try to not look like tourists, okay? We're just a couple of cool, inflatable dinosaurs who live here like it's our business. We're just, like, cool locals, okay? Okay, just stay cool and calm and collected. Everything is going to be okay. Mindy! like one of the locals. This is fun! So, Mindy, how was this species of ankylosaur even discovered? Oh, okay. Well, story time.

Oh, hang on a second. Let me just get the story time music to come up on my guy phone here for effect. Mindy? Oh, there we go. Okay. So once upon a February... In the year 2018, a team of paleontologists... So scientists who study fossils like dinosaur bones. Exactly. So this team of... paleontologist from the University of Chile set out on a dino dig in a river delta on the southernmost tip of Chile, right where we're walking now.

Right where we're walking among all of these dinosaurs who somehow seem to believe we're actually T-Rexes? Uh-huh. Okay. The area was known to be a hotspot. for fossil finds, but the conditions there were anything but. It was freezing, and just as the icy air grew colder and the Arctic winds picked up speed, the paleontologists stumbled upon a mysterious pile of bones. Oh, looky here. We found a bunch of bones. Well, big whoop.

I got a whole body of bones underneath this skin here. Gee, Forrest, we're playing paleontologists. Yeah? So? So, be more excited. This is supposed to be unexpected. And amazing. What was that, fellow paleontologists? We found bones? Oh, you're here too, huh? Yes, I'm here too, Tommy. I mean, fellow scientist. And we need to get these bones back to the lab.

Why? Oh, uh, I don't know. For a really good reason, I imagine? Time was running out as the frigid weather conditions continued to rage. Oh, I see it now. Brr! Hurry, everyone! Collect the bones. It's snowing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the paleontologists spent the next five days hauling this icy bunch of bones back to their lab. where they were met with another team of local Chilean paleontologists. It was a treacherous journey. Oh, this is so treacherous. One sprained an ankle. Ow, my ankle!

Another broke a rib. Heavens. Well, it's cool. I'm a paleontologist, remember? I put bones back together for a living. OK, here we go. That's better. Oh, snap. And they all risked hypothermia. It took everything they had just to survive these conditions. But when they got the bones back to the lab... They discovered... What, Mindy? What did they discover? They discovered that they had discovered something. They discovered that they had...

species of dinosaur! Oh, that's right! But we knew that from the start of the story.

So the team got to work like the prehistoric puzzle masters that they are. This goes here. No, no, no way. This goes there, and that goes here. They put those bones back... together again piece by piece and by the time they had the last bone in place They had reconstructed about 80% of the skeleton of this dinosaur from snout to tail. All six and a half feet or two meters of it. Ta-da! Wham! Well, I think we deserve a pat on the back for this. Okay-do! Ow! Tommy! Ow! Oop. Sorry, feller.

It turns out that the bones were in such good shape after being preserved in this river delta for like... 72 million years that the whole dinosaur skeleton from the waist down and much of the upper body as well was able to be put back together again. Not you, but I'm pretty happy with that. Well, you're still missing a few paces in the head. Aren't we all? But it was the tale that wowed them the most.

What in the World Wide Web is going on with this tail? The tail was unlike anything scientists had ever seen before. What? I don't see anything interesting. Oh, heavens! The tail! What's wrong with it? Well, if this tale is wrong, then I don't want to be right. At the end of the tale was a jagged mass of bone fused together like shingles on a roof. It appeared to them like some sort of spiky cricket bat mixed with a battle axe.

It looks like a cricket bat and a battle axe had a baby. This tale was made for trouble. And upon realizing that they had uncovered and discovered a brand new species of dinosaur? These paleontologists knew that they had to give it a name. Oh, how about Kyle? Nah, I'm calling it Baby G-Force. What about Sergeant Battlebutt III? In the end...

the paleontologists decided to name it Stengaros Elengossin. Oh, I did? Stagarros for its shingled roof tail, and Ellen Gawson after the armored beast in the mythology of the local Uncanunk people. Wow, so it's not every day that paleontologists discover a new species of dinosaur. Nope. And it's not every day that they discover one in the southern hemisphere. And I bet it's not every day that they discover one with a weapon for a tail. That's right. This is a big deal for Chilean paleontology.

And according to Dr. Anthony Vargas, one of the lead paleontologists in this study, this... is only the beginning. Meaning that Stagoras Elengossens serves as a big clue that there might be more left to find? You know it. Well, speaking of finding dinosaurs, I'm not seeing any around here with battle axe tails, and I'm starting to think that maybe that's a good thing for us. Guy Raz, are you telling me that you're afraid of coming tail to tail with Stagoras Elengazin? Uh, yeah. Okay, well...

I think you look ferocious in that inflatable dinosaur suit, but I guess we could get back in the wow machine and head back home. Race you there! Run, run, run! That's my line! Run, run, run, run! Phew! Opening the hatch? Wait, Mindy, did you forget to lock the hatch? I don't know. Probably. Why? Well, it's just that it was... Cracked open, Cretaceous bugs could get inside. If we're lucky. Well, no time to waste in time travel. Hop in, Mindy.

Okay, let's see here. Plug in the coordinates. We're going to our neighborhood in the present day. And here we go.

What was that? Mindy, what was that? What was what? Didn't you hear that? When we took off, I heard something from inside this wow machine roar. What? No, that sound was obviously a snore. Mindy, where is that snore coming from? Isn't it obvious, Guy Raz? It's coming from the Stagoros elengosen, the dinosaur sleeping in the back of the wow machine. The what? The dino! Oh boy, this is not...

accidentally brought a dinosaur into the present day? Mindy, this is a disaster. We could change the course of history. Okay, Roz, don't worry. As usual, I've got everything out of... It took you two so long. It's not like it went that far. I see you brought me back a souvenir. Oh, nice. Well, not on purpose. A souvenir? Mindy, does she not see that that's an actual document?

A dinosaur with a weapon for a tail? Well, hey there, big boy. Looks like you've got what it takes to help me whack my wings. Come on out here and give Grandma G-Force a tail. What in the... Oh, yeah, that was real nice. See, I told you. It was all gonna work out, Kyron. Look at that. Indy. Well, that's right. Just whack them wings. Whack them. I'm gonna keep you. This message is for you.

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to keep them from sinking in sand. Hi, Mindy and Guy Raz. My name is Kevin, and I live in St. Louis, Missouri, and my while in the world is the Peregrine Falcon. is the fastest bird on earth. It can clock up to 243 miles per hour. That's my wow in the world. And tell Reggie I said hi. Hi, my name is Holly. I live in North Carolina. My well in the world is that pigeons make and drink milk. Hi, my name is Alex from Grayswick, Illinois, and I'm nine years old.

is that some metals are so reactive they explode on contact with water. That's crazy! Say hi to Grandma G-Force. Say what? Super duper annoying Dennis. Yes? Reggie and Thomas Fingerling for me. What? I wasn't sleeping. Love your show. Bye. Hi, my name is Camilla, and I'm eight years old. I live in Connecticut, and my wow is that besides... is 4.6 billion years old. Say hi to Grandma G-Force. Uh, excuse me? Reggie, Thomas Fingerly, Stagman, and Denison. Hi!

Island. And my wow is there are more insects on Earth than all the other animals put together, including humans. Say hi to Mindy, Guy Raz, Grandma. G-Force. Aw, isn't that nice? Thomas Fingerling. What? Dennis and Reggie for me. Howdy. Bye. Grownups, if you like wow in the world, you can listen early and ad-free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Wondery Kids Plus on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

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