Re: Sinornithomimus, new dino in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 7/1/03 6:49:42 PM EST, Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com writes:

<< But Currie et al. (2003) place Daspletosaurus as the sister group of the
 Asiatic taxa.  Notably, both this clade and the Asiatic clade are supported
 by a single synapomorphy.  Wonder what would happen when Holtz's (2001)
 postcranial characters are added. >>

I separated T. bataar from T. efremovi into the new genus Jenghizkhan mainly 
because the vertebrae associated with the holotype T. bataar skull stuck me as 
distinctly different (taller, with different height:length ratio) from the 
vertebrae of T. efremovi and Tyrannosaurus rex. This might be ascribable to 
ontogeny, but I'm still not so sure, particularly because so few supposed 
"adult"-size specimens are known. As I've mentioned here a number of times, 
almost all 
the specimens of T. rex are of "adult"-size and only a few "juveniles" are 
known; exactly the reverse is true of the supposed species T. bataar.