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Theropod data for a computer science study.


Matthew_Dino_Searcher

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Hello I am working on my PhD in computer science and am working on collecting data for my thesis.

I have been looking for a lot of data on theropod measurements like; teeth size, body mass, femur and tibia, length width, and other measurements (the more the better). 

I would like to collect samples from a few theropods like the T-Rex, Raptors, ect... and to have multiple skeleton for each. I need to have their measurement for my data points.

I know that there are some journals that give detailed measurement for each fossil they find but I do  not know how to search for them as each search yields vary results. Is there a certain key word that I should use to get the measurements for each fossil?   

I have been here https://paleobiodb.org/#/ but it does not look like the information that I need. 

Any help on this will be appreciated.    

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I think you can get in touch with the collections manager of a museum in your area that would house theropods, to explain your project. He could give you an RV to give you access to the fossils to measure them in his presence.
 
Coco

----------------------
OUTIL POUR MESURER VOS FOSSILES : ici

Ma bibliothèque PDF 1 (Poissons et sélaciens récents & fossiles) : ici
Ma bibliothèque PDF 2 (Animaux vivants - sans poissons ni sélaciens) : ici
Mâchoires sélaciennes récentes : ici
Hétérodontiques et sélaciens : ici
Oeufs sélaciens récents : ici
Otolithes de poissons récents ! ici

Un Greg...

Badges-IPFOTH.jpg.f4a8635cda47a3cc506743a8aabce700.jpg Badges-MOTM.jpg.461001e1a9db5dc29ca1c07a041a1a86.jpg

 

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I live in Japan and they only have sharks and fish on display sadly.  There is one place that has dinosaur fossils, but its hard to talk with the curator there as they only speak Japanese. I will try emailing some other museum and hopefully they have that information on hand. 

Thank you for your suggestions.   

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Interesting project. I assume you are plotting size ranges, and to do that for all theropods will be a considerable undertaking. Will you also be factoring in size variation on the basis of developmental age (for example, juveniles as opposed to mature specimens)? 

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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No I am throwing out Ontology as it will force the Deep learning model that I am building to learn odd relationships between measurements and activity.  So I will only be looking at adults. If I stay in one species than I would look at age groups as this would allow me to model a particular species. But for my PhD it will focus on multiple species for trends. But age may be my next project.    

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It sounds like you're building an algorithm once you have some of those data inputs, and that would serve as a kind of "enclosure" that can be updated with more data. I'm curious what the output would be (search entry recall? Graphical representation?). 

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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Ok, I will go into a little more detail. 

Based on the work from Kane, etal 2016 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27172591) I found that he built a very simple model to tell if a theropod is a scavenger or not.

I did a lot of digging in biology and zoology and found other factors like tooth size, tooth function, prey size, ect... that contribute to a animal tending to be a scavenger or not.

So I figured I could build a deep learning model similar to their simulation but would give a nice degree of how much the theropod would rely on scavenging for a main source of energy.

So it will be a range from 0 to 100. I am betting that there should be no 0 or 100 but fall between 10-90 as no animal is fully a scavenger.       

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Thanks for the details -- it's even more interesting now, and it does seem very reminiscent of setting up a more granular probability matrix (where p0 and p1 are just ideal limit cases, and the actual data would sit within those parameters). As you proceed, I hope you'll update us!

 

As for the data points, I wish I could assist but theropods are out of my wheelhouse. Although not ideal, I would brace for having to acquire that data the slow, organic way of sifting through the journals unless someone else on here has some handy compilation of size ranges (which might be possible!). 

...How to Philosophize with a Hammer

 

 

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I hear you. I have been looking for terms to search for to find what I need. 

I am looking into methods for biological data augmentation so I can built a reliable model but with fewer real data points and many simulated ones. 

But I need a good range a ratio to build out what I need.    

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Both Carpenter and David Smith(JVP/1998) published some biometrics on Allosaurus  ,e.g.

allo

Paleontological Research, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 250–259, December 31, 2010
doi:10.2517/1342-8144-14.4.250
Variation in a population of Theropoda (Dinosauria):Allosaurus from the Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry (Upper
Jurassic), Utah, USA
KENNETH CARPENTER

or:

 

VariationinapopulationofAllosaurus.pdf

 

 

 

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Those are a lot different than the articles I normally read. But that is a good article thank you. It gives me a way to find out more.

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Dunno if this would come in handy?

 

Two_applications_of_3D_semi-landmark_morphometrics.pdf

C. R. Palevol 9 (2010)

Two applications of 3D semi-landmark morphometrics implying different template designs: the theropod pelvis and the shrew skull
Deux applications de morphométrie par semi-landmarks 3D impliquant une conception différente du template : le pelvis des théropodes et le crâne des
musaraignes
Thibaud Souter, Raphael Cornette, Julio Pedraza

 

 

 

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Neat, lucky its in python so that should be pretty easy to manipulate or extend as needed. I will give that a go, thank you

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I am also looking at ways to build a dataset by looking at a small sample like 4 or 5 theropods and then building a large database based on the ratio between the skeletal structure.  The ratio should be controlled by a threshold which will allow for some variability in the dataset so it will not be just a light increase of 1 cm all around. It will look at change the size a little bit per initial increase. That way I can turn 4 or 6 into 4 or 60000 data points.

But first I need to find a reason why that would be appropriate way of increasing the dataset size.   

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  • 1 month later...

Hi everyone, sorry I have been quite lately been calling up a lot of museums and reading papers. I found out that there is a high possibility that there would never be enough data available for my study and the measurements from papers may not be fully comparable as each author may measure from different start/stop points. 

So my next plan is to look at bio-stats to build a synthetic data-set. I am working on a new method to generate the data points I will need based on the smallest and largest theropod of a certain species. This way I can statistically interpolate data between these two data points and then for the final steps add in a linear regression t generate variability with in the data set using the standard deviation and mean generated from the two data points. 

I need to test this idea out fully to make sure, but it should work.

I will keep you guys posted. 

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