Re: State paleontologists

[jdharris@teal.csn.net (Jerry D. Harris)]

>Could you please provide information on Gastonia?  Thank you.
>
>---John Schneiderman (dino@revelation.unomaha.edu)

John -

        I don't know too much about _Gastonia_, as this fossil has yet to
be formally described!  It's under the studious eye of Jim Kirkland.  From
the snippets I've heard, it can be perceived as a transitional animal
between being a nodosaurid and a true ankylosaurid -- it's got
characteristics of both (I don't know which, though!)  Kirkland, I think,
is planning to reorganize the polacanthine (?) dinosaurs as a nice
transitional group between nodosaurs and ankylosaurs.  Ken (Carpenter) may
know more...Ken?

Jerry D. Harris
Denver Museum of Natural History
2001 Colorado Blvd.
Denver, CO  80205
(303) 370-6403

Internet:  jdharris@teal.csn.net
CompuServe:  73132,3372
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        "I repainted the picture Brown had painted for us.  A dying,
shrinking lake...these great...behemoths...dying..."
        "Well," she said, "all you tell me may be so...but I still can't
see why such creatures would have wanted to do it in the first place."
        "Do what, ma'am?"
        "Why, crawl away back under all that rock to die."

-- Roland T. Bird, _Bones for Barnum Brown_
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