From: "T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>
Reply-To: keesey@gmail.com
To: Dinosaur Mailing List <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Subject: Re: When carnivores kill other carnivores...
Date: Thu, 09 Mar 2006 16:38:59 -0800
On 3/9/06, Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I follow Rauhut in recognizing that _Altispinax_ is the valid name for
the
> tall-spined Wealden theropod from England. Rauhut's rationale is that
Huene
> explicitly proposed the name _Altispinax_ for the distinctive vertebrae,
not
> for the indeterminate tooth that was originally named _Megalosaurus
> dunkeri_. I'm sure some people would disagree with this interpretation
> (e.g., the guy who proposed the name _Becklespinax_).
Well, he was following Paul's lead. In PDW Paul named a new species of
_Acrocanthosaurus_ (_A. altispinax_) for the spines; Olshevsky just
moved it to its own genus.
This sounds questionable to me, though. If _Megalosaurus dunkeri_ is
just the tooth, then either _A. dunkeri_ is the type species and the
tooth is the holotype of _Altispinax_, or "Altispinax" has never been
given a type species, and is therefore not an available name.
Etymology does not guide taxonomic rules.
--
Mike Keesey
The Dinosauricon: http://dino.lm.com
Parry & Carney: http://parryandcarney.com