RE: Dinosaur Genera List corrections #176

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Dinogeorge@aol.com
>
> I recently received a copy of Dan Chure's dissertation on Allosaurus from
> University Microfilms International. In it he defines and
> diagnoses three new
> taxa: Alashansaurus n. gen. for the species Chilantaisaurus maortuensis;
> Szechuanoraptor dongi n. gen. et sp. for a skeleton previously
> referred to
> Szechuanosaurus campi; and Allosaurus jimmadseni n.sp. for the marvelous
> Dinosaur National Monument skeleton that for a couple of years remained
> headless. Also on p. 226 he publishes the museum label name Allosaurus
> robustus for an Australian allosauroid specimen. Dan's
> dissertation is the
> most thorough and up-to-date study of the genus Allosaurus ever
> produced, and
> it is a must-have document, at least until its contents are
> published in a
> scientific journal or some other scientific venue.
>
PLEASE NOTE:

Before people start using Chure's names on their Internet lists and so
forth, they are explicitly NOT cosidered valid by the ICZN (disserations do
NOT count as "published")!!  However, suffice to say that these matters are
in process through the standard publishing pipeline.

For the sake of Dan's priority for these names in the future, DO NOT EVER
use these names in your Internet sites until such time as they are formally
published.  The reason: far more people are using fan-websites to do their
research, including (quite sadly) professional scientists outside the
profession.  We don't want to run into another situation like the
"Ultrasaurus" fiasco (when a Korean paleontologist, assuming that
_Ultrasaurus_ had been formally named because everybody was using it, wound
up naming a new (and later shown to be useless) species that had priority).

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796