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Re: Abydosaurus mcintoshi, a new sauropod from the Albian of Utah
Tim Williams wrote:
> Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com> wrote:
>
> The discovery of _Abydosaurus_ might actually have provided a good
> opportunity to test the monophyly of _altithorax_+_brancai_. Instead,
> this monophyly was simply assumed by Chure &c, and _altithorax_+_brancai_
> were therefore treated as a single OTU (_Brachiosaurus_) in the
> phylogenetic analysis.
>
>
> Also, as mentioned by Mike, _altithorax_ is from the Morrison, and
> _brancai_ is from the Tendaguru. Thus, I would have thought that lumping
> the two into a single genus would require compelling morphological
> evidence. This isn't the case. IMHO, Taylor (2009) established a strong
> case for treating _brancai_ as a separate genus (_Giraffatitan_). It's
> only historical tradition that's holding the two together. If Janensch
> had *not* referred _brancai_ to _Brachiosaurus_, but had instead erected a
> separate genus, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
>
I would be seriously interested in seeing Lusotitan, Europasaurus,
Sauroposeidon, Paluxysaurus, and Astrodon thrown into the mix!
--
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Email: tholtz@umd.edu Phone: 301-405-4084
Office: Centreville 1216
Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Dept. of Geology, University of Maryland
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
Fax: 301-314-9661
Faculty Director, Earth, Life & Time Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite/
Faculty Director, Science & Global Change Program, College Park Scholars
http://www.geol.umd.edu/sgc
Fax: 301-314-9843
Mailing Address: Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
Department of Geology
Building 237, Room 1117
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742 USA