Triceratops

["Steve Brusatte" <dinoland@lycos.com>]

Thank you everybody for your insights into my Triceratops question.  It seems 
as if there are two prevailing camps here.  I do wish that Dodson would write a 
paper on his views, and include a whole lot of character analyses.  I do agree 
that Forster's five characters is awful slim...

This entire idea of one Triceratops species has given birth to another idea of 
mine.  Has the same ever been done for Psittacosaurus?  There are something 
like, oh, 8-10 species.  I do believe that Sereno authored a paper sometime in 
the late 80's that made the case for four different Psittacosaurus species.  
However, has a more recent analysis been done, taking in the AMNH-collected 
specimens?  

I find it hard to believe, in a strict biological sense, that four different 
species of the same genera would inhabit the same area.  I do know that some of 
the Psittacosaurus species are from different times, but this notion is still 
hard to believe.  Dodson, in his book, repeats the fact that there is only one 
species of giraffe, one species of hippo, and one species of rhino in Africa 
today.  If there were 8 or 10, then all of the species would be competing for 
the same general foods and something would go extinct.  

I would be very interested to see if a character analysis of this sort could 
trim down the Psittacosaurus species list.  

Steve

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Steve Brusatte-DINO LAND PALEONTOLOGY
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