APATOSAURUS SP.NOV.

["D.W.Naish" <dwn194@soton.ac.uk>]

Forgive me if this is too late to be of any use, but I finally have the paper
on Apatosaurus yahnapin (pronounced wah-nah'-pee). I said that this sauropod
possessed indisbutable gastroliths - I was misinformed and it turns out that it
has indisbutable GASTRALIA. Yes, sauropods have gastralia too. The authors
speculate on how these may have been used in movements of the rib cage muscles
(for breathing). A particularly well preserved scapula also reveals the intimate
workings of Apatosaurus shoulder and forelimb musculature. In all, a quite
excellent paper me thinks:

FILLA,B.J. and REDMAN, P.D. 1994
Apatosaurus yahnapin: a preliminary description of a new species of diplodocid
dinosaur from the late Jurassic Morrison Formation of southern Wyoming, the
first sauropod dinosaur found with a complete set of 'belly ribs'
FORTY-FOURTH ANNUAL FIELD CONFERENCE - 1994 WYOMING GEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION 
GUIDEBOOK pp.159-178

For those that haven't yet figured it out, the thing in the sunday children's
supplement to that newspaper was a gag, written for kids and with a few
attempted funnies thrown in.

'Raptor' meaning 'dromaeosaurid, particularly Velociraptor and its closest
relatives, or other predatory theropod' has replaced 'raptor' meaning 'predatory
bird' in common dino-parlance. But not universally, and certainly not
ornithologically! Obviously, correct interpretation of its meaning is context
dependent.

DARREN NAISH