Re: Dinosaurs of Australia, Antarctica, and India

[Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>]

Dinogeorge@aol.com wrote:
>
> Just finished the sixth and final file of dinosaur species by continent. This
> is the shortest file in the series, only 5 printed pages. Not too many
>  dinosaurs on these three land masses! Email me privately to receive your free
>  copy by return email.

The very first entry in the above file (thanks George!) says:

>Allosaurus Marsh, 1877
>NOTE: A possible new species is to be described from the Early Cretaceous of 
>Australia, about 40% the size of Allosaurus fragilis (Vickers-Rich & Rich, 
>1993). A cast of the type specimen, an astragalus, at the Yale Peabody Museum, 
>is hand-labeled with an as-yet-unpublished new species epithet (D. Chure, 
>pers. comm.).

Would this be Allosaurus robustus? I remember finding the Victorian astragalus
labeled such several years ago, in a searchable online museum database (the name
of the museum escapes me, it was at least four years ago). Until very recently
I'd had it labled as "Allosaurus ?robustus" on my web site. I'd only just got
around to ammending it to "Allosaurus sp". Will I have to change it back any
time soon?

On an almost completely unrelated note, the second edition of "Wildlife of
Gondwana" can be ordered at Amazon.com. Apparently they've got it on order
themselves, and they'll send it out as soon as it's published. The publishing
date was meant to be October, although they didn't mention in which year.  :)

If you can't live without a copy, you can always order it directly from my site
at:

http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/4459/books.html

It costs around $50 US, although personal enquiries of mine have led to a quote
of around $115 Australian. I'm hoping I can order it through Monash University
and claim my 10% "Dinosaur Club Victoria/Friends of Dinosaur Dreaming" discount.
That'll still put it at just above $100 Australian. Apparently it contains not
only all of the Australian material published after 1993, but a considerable
amount of Indian material as well.

On another almost completely unrelated note, it's nice to see that Australia had
titanosaurs after all * (Austrosaurus always did seem titanosauriform-ish to me,
if only superficially). It certainly fills the biogeographic gap between South
America and India. Now what's the likelyhood of Abelisaur remains turning up
within a decade or two?

* Ralph E Molnar, A REASSESSMENT OF THE PHYLOGENETIC POSITION OF CRETACEOUS
SAUROPOD DINOSAURS FROM QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA. VII INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
ON MESOZOIC TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMS. September 26 - October 1 - 1999. Buenos
Aires, Argentina.


-- 
____________________________________________________
        Dann Pigdon
        GIS Archaeologist
        Melbourne, Australia

        Australian Dinosaurs:
        http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/4459/
        http://www.alphalink.com.au/~dannj
____________________________________________________