Re: Cretaceous Dicynodonts was Re Triassic mammal-like reptiles?

[K and T Dykes <ktdykes@arcor.de>]

<<carcasses and bones can be carried downriver  (by water, scavengers, and
such)....could fossilized bones\skeletons be likewise?>>

They could to some extent, but if much distance were involved, they should
be heavily damaged to completely wrecked.  What fragments there are, happen
to be well enough preserved to be show diagnostic characteristics.  They've
also got the appropriate matrix stuck to them.  The authors have it as a
late surivivor of a clade involving /Dicynodon/, /Kannemeyeria/ and
/Lystrosaurus/.  It's more similar to the first two.  Page 989 has a quote
attesting to their certainty: "In summary, all available evidence supports
identification of the Alderley material as a late-surviving dicynodont, and
we are unable to find even a single feature that would weaken or contradict
that identification."

<<(if it was a complete Dicynodont skeleton, maybe it'd been a mummified
specimen, but the mummy skin was torn off in the Early Cretaceous...by the
above strategy)

halfway plausible? *curious*>>

There were no mentions I can remember of significant transportation damage.
All the fragments are pieces of skull, and they're consistent with being
from the same skull.  It's a bizarre find.  I live in hope more material
will turn up one day.  Oh, and I think they mention an estimate for the
complete skull length somewhere of about 40cm.  I've just found where;
page987.