Re: Hell Creek Vertebrates at Berkeley catalogue

[Stan Friesen <swf@ElSegundoCA.NCR.COM>]

>From: "Miles Constable at Edmn" <ConstableM@mail.edm.ab.doe.ca>
 > 
 > In my brief tour through Russ's Home Page I browsed through the Hell Creek 
 > Vertebrates at Berkeley catalogue. One listing was extremely puzzling. It 
 > was listed as Purgatorius ceratops, Class Mammalia, Order Primates. 
 > Hmmmm...... Is this a joke, am I a poorer biologist than my boss thinks, or 
 > did someone really screw up the taxonomy of this specimen?

It is correct, at least by current practice.  The genus Purgatorius
is the oldest known primate.  Purgatorius ceratops is one of the
species of that genus.

> It would be a 
 > truely awsome thing to have a ceratopsian primate, but a little difficult to 
 > visualize. 

It isn't ceratopsian in that sense.  The specific epithet (the species
part of the standard two-part name) is subordinate to the genus name,
and is intended mainly to distinguish the species from others in the
same genus.  It is *often* more or less descriptive, but it can
be ery obscure.  It is possible that this species of P. is known
from pieces of the skull, and has small, horned-toad style, horns
on it.  More likely, however, is that the name refers either to
its being found in association with a ceratopsian, or to some feature
of the teeth or jaw (as that is usually all that is found of North
American mammals from that time period).

[There are about half a dozen or so known species of Purgatorius
ranging from the Latest Maastrichtian through the Danian].

A piece of trivia, the genus was named for the locality it was
found at, Purgatory Hill in eastern Montana.  (I was once
within a couple miles of the spot, and could probably have seen
the hill, if I had known what to look for).

swf@elsegundoca.ncr.com         sarima@netcom.com

The peace of God be with you.