New Tatisaurus paper

[Tim Williams <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

Norman, D.B., Butler, R.C., and Maidment, S.C.R. (2007).  Reconsidering the 
status and affinities of the ornithischian dinosaur _Tatisaurus oehleri_ 
Simmons, 1965.  Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 150: 865-874.

Abstract: "The early Mesozoic fossil fauna collected from the Lower Lufeng 
Formation of Yunnan Province, China, has attracted considerable interest and 
attention since its discovery in the late 1930s.  Its importance reflected a 
combination of its comparatively remote geographical position and, more 
particularly, the similarities of its fauna compared with approximately 
contemporary discoveries from Europe, North and South America, and southern 
Africa.  The fragmentary and poorly preserved Lufeng ornithischian dinosaur 
_Tatisaurus oehleri_ was described in 1965 and proved taxonomically and 
systematically enigmatic from the start.  Originally assigned, with some 
noted ambivalence, to the basal ('primitive') group of ornithischians known 
as hypsilophodontids, since 1965 _Tatisaurus_ has been variously ignored, 
assigned to a more rigorously defined Hypsilophodontidae, referred to both 
of the armoured (thyreophoran) ornithischian dinosaur clades (Stegosauria 
and Ankylosauria), or referred to a more basal position within the 
thyreophoran lineage.  In 1996 the holotype of _Tatisaurus_ was renamed 
_Scelidosaurus oehleri_, and the genus _Scelidosaurus_ was proposed as an 
index fossil of the '_Scelidosaurus_ biochron' with the potential to be used 
for the global stratigraphic correlation of Early Jurassic (early 
Sinemurian) rocks.  Because of this chequered history _Tatisaurus oehleri_ 
Simmons, 1965 has been re-examined and is redescribed so that its taxonomic 
status and systematic position could be reassessed.  _Tatisaurus_ is 
identified as a basal thyreophoran (armoured ornithischian dinosaur); there 
is no basis for amalgamating it in synonymy with the genus _Scelidosaurus_, 
and the proposed creation of a '_Scelidosaurus_ biochron' for the purposes 
of biostratigraphic correlation of Lower Jurassic outcrops has no utility 
whatever."


The authors also regard _Tatisaurus oehleri_ as a nomen dubium.

Cheers, Tim

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