Re: Time Space and Matter -2

[jdharris@csn.net (Jerry D. Harris)]

>I understood that there were no known skulls of Haplocanthosaurus. If so,
>how do we know what their teeth were like? Is this yet another gap in my
>understandings of things dinosaurian or is someone telling a fib?

        You're correct in that we don't have a skull for
_Haplocanthosaurus_, but we know enough of the skeleton to have a grasp of
its relationships.  It's primitive, and, last I heard, still classified in
with the cetiosaurids; thus, it's probably got primitive, cetiosaurid
teeth.  Common sense should've sufficed, several decades ago, to say that
hey, _Apatosaurus_ is a diplodocid; it should have a diplodocid skull.  Why
it ever ended up with a camarasaurid skull, I can't imagine.  8-)  Ah...but
then again, sauropod skulls (like the one on _Mamenchisaurus_; until its
discovery, the beast was thought to be a diplodocid!) seem to have a nasty
habit of fooling even the best paleontologists!  Now what _are_ we gonna
think when the head of _Nemegtosaurus_ is shown to belong on the body of
_Opisthocoelocaudia_???  ;-)



Jerry D. Harris
Denver Museum of Natural History
2001 Colorado Blvd.
Denver, CO  80205
(303) 370-6403
Internet:  jdharris@teal.csn.net
CompuServe:  73132,3372

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