Gigantspinosaurus: a legit name (was RE: Almost New Papers)

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

> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Tim Williams
>
> Is there any indication that "Gigantspinosaurus" has been officially named?
> Or is it one of those naughty nomina nuda?
>
> I actually hope that it hasn't been officially named yet.  That'll give the
> researchers time to think up a better name than "Gigantspinosaurus" (or at
> least improve the grammar).
>

Sadly, it is legit and so we don't get to improve the name. Susannah Maidment 
(Cambridge) presented a stegosaur paper at SVP last
year with this critter in it. Afterwards I asked about its status, and as far 
as she can tell Ouyang 1992 represents a valid work
for the purposes of taxonomic nomenclature. The reference is:

OUYANG, H. 1992. [Discovery of Gigantspinosaurus sichanensis and its scapular 
spine orientation.] Abstracts and Summaries for Youth
Academic Symposium on New Discoveries and Ideas in Stratigraphic Paleontology, 
47?9 (in Chinese).

Maidment and Wei discuss the beastie briefly in:

Maidment, S.C.R. & G. Wei. 2006. A review of the Late Jurassic stegosaurs 
(Dinosauria, Stegosauria) from the People?s Republic of
China. Geol. Mag. 143:621?634.

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
        Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
        Mailing Address:
                Building 237, Room 1117
                College Park, MD  20742

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