Re: Bambiraptor

[ELurio@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/19/00 3:00:18 PM, rowe@psych.ucsb.edu writes:

<< The issue isn't necessarily the existence of commercial fossil dealers as
much as the ultimate fate of scientifically important material.  If it
doesn't go to a museum, it might as well have not been collected, as far as
science is concerned.>>

Nonsense! Didn't Ostrum find the fifth archaeopteryx in a private collection? 
Would you rather it had been sold to a lithographic company by the 
Shönhoffen[sic] quarry? In fact most of the fossils there were sold to 
private collectors. Most fossiliforous sites are on private land, y'know. 
Shouldn't museums have contacts with local auction houses and such to find 
such stuff? Didn't Jack Horner discover Miasaurus in a local curio shop? 
Should he have ignored it or had the owner arrested? NO! Better that museums 
have good contacts with dealers so they could have get a heads up on some of 
these things.


<<chris (who was sickened to see dinosaur teeth from Africa for sale at the
Geological Society of America meeting, and who is definitely writing to the
GSA president to complain.) >>

....where paleontologists could examine them! Had they been banned, they 
would have been sold somewhere else. After all if the GSA confiscated them, 
it would be stealing!!! Paleontology is mostly detective work. It wouldn't be 
that hard to track down where they had been picked up.

eric l.