RE: Propanoplosaurus, nodosaur hatchling natural mold from Maryland

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

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu [mailto:owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu] 
> On Behalf Of Jaime Headden
>
> A hatchling holotype ... 
> 

What's more, a hatchling MOLD holotype: no bones about it...

Specimen has been on display at the Smithsonian in their local dinosaurs case 
for a year or two.

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, 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 

> > Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2011 15:25:12 +0000
> > From: bh480@scn.org
> > To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> > Subject: Propanoplosaurus, nodosaur hatchling natural mold from 
> > Maryland
> >
> > From: Ben Creisler
> > bh480@scn.org
> >
> > In the new issue of Journal of Paleontology:
> >
> > Ray Stanford, David B. Weishampel and Valerie B. Deleon
> > (2011)
> > The First Hatchling Dinosaur Reported from the Eastern 
> United States: 
> > Propanoplosaurus marylandicus (Dinosauria:
> > Ankylosauria) from the Early Cretaceous of Maryland, U.S.A.
> > Journal of Paleontology 85(5):916-924.
> > http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1666/10-113.1
> > Abstract
> > Abundant and diverse dinosaur footprints have been 
> discovered recently 
> > on bedding surfaces of the Lower Cretaceous Patuxent Formation of 
> > Maryland and Virginia.
> > Found along with those ichnofossils is a fossil preserved 
> partially as 
> > natural casts and partially as natural molds of a baby nodosaurid 
> > ankylosaur so small as to justify interpreting it as a hatchling. 
> > Despite the rather unusual type of preservation, the find 
> is properly 
> > termed a body fossil and not an ichnite, per se, because it records 
> > not the action of an organism, but the body form and bone structure 
> > (including partial articulation) of a dinosaur. We here name it 
> > Propanoplosaurus marylandicus and provide a description of its 
> > diagnostic characteristics. Although actual skeletal 
> remains referable 
> > to P. marylandicus have not been found in the Patuxent Formation, 
> > other nodosaurids recognized from skeletal remains are 
> known from both 
> > the Lower and Upper Cretaceous strata of the Western 
> Interior of North 
> > America and Europe. P. marylandicus represents the only diagnostic 
> > nodosaurid from the Early Cretaceous of the eastern U.S.A., 
> provides 
> > information on growth patterns among nodosaurids, and is the first 
> > direct evidence of a dinosaur hatchling and, deductively, 
> nesting, on 
> > the entire eastern seaboard
> >
>