From: Renesto Silvio <renesto@mailserver.unimi.it>
Reply-To: renesto@mailserver.unimi.it
To: scott_hartman@hotmail.com
CC: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: Longisquama update (was: Archosaurs of a feather)
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 10:15:01 +0100
At 19.46 09/03/01, you wrote:
> I don't want to disparage one of the more distinguished journals of
our era, but I'm pretty aghast that the Longisquama paper was accepted for
publication.
Longisquama intrigues many. Among the most recent issues on this beastie:
1) David Peters in his paper on prolacertiform phylogenesis, considers it
as an advanced prolacertiform close to pterosaurs.
2) M. Benton, D. Unwin and A. Alifanov in the recent book on russian
reptiles even doubt it is an archosaur.
3) Just a ***coincidence***: one of the three main characters quoted by
these authors as diagnostic for Longisquama (elongate manus digit four
equivalent in length to the humerus) is present also in the (still unnamed)
drepanosaurid figured in my 2000 paper on Megalancosaurus.
Absolutely no doubt that they are quite different beasts , but it is
intriguing as well (at least to me).
Silvio Renesto
"Before being enlightened, hard work; after enlightenment, hard work"
(Guo Yunshen).
Dr. Silvio Renesto
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra
Università degli Studi di Milano
via Mangiagalli 34
I 20133 Milano
Italy
phone +39-0223698232
fax +39-02-70638261
e-mail: renesto@mailserver.unimi.it
or/and Silvio.Renesto@unimi.it