Bloopers, gender and references

[Ralph Chapman <MNHAD002@SIVM.SI.EDU>]

 I know of one blooper that didn;t make it to press. A group recently
thought they had a glyptodont (and were excited, of course) and ended
up realizing they had a turtle. Both useful beasts but hardly
interchangeable - but the mistake is understandable. I'll and think
if others.

   One species name change that occurred recently was when Hans Sues
realized that Stegoceras validus had to become Stegoceras validum to
get the proper gender agreement.

And now to refs:

A new paper suggests not only support for a procimal K-T impact at the
Beloc, Haiti section but suggests evidence for a slightly later second
impact as well:

Leroux, Hugues, et al. 1995. The K/T boundary at Beloc (Haiti):
    Compared stratigraphic distributions of the boundary markers.
    Earth & Planetary Science Letters  131:255-268.

Fernando Novas reports on the first international symposium on
Gondwana Dinosaurs held in Trelew in April, 1994 in the last
issue of Ameghiniana (Rev. Assoc. Paleontol. Argentina). It's in
Spanish so I have yet to translate it but its on page 316 of 31(4).

There have been 2 Late Triassic turtles found in Argentina that are nice
and give more clues on the more primitive turtle groups. A report makes
up the cover story in the May 12, 1995 issue of science:

Rougier, G.W., M.S. de la Fuente & A.B.Arcucci. Late Triassic turtles
    from South American. Science 268:855-858.

Makes you proud to be an American (in the hemispheric sense).

There's report of a new specimen of the Pliosaur Peloneustes from
the Oxford Clay near Peterborough, England. There is a short note
on it in the latest issue of Mercian Geologist 13(4):155. About 1/2
is there including some skull and neck. I tell you those English
are swimming in marine reptiles - a point I fully realized when I
toured England for 10 days and visited a number of small local museums
and they all seemed to have their own marine reptiles and The
Natural History Museum (ex BMNH) seems to be outright infested with them.
The ichthyosaur 3-D mount in the entry Hall to that museum is the most
amazing marine reptile specimen I'd ever seen with the possible exception
of an ichthyosaur in the Natural History Museum of Las Vegas that was so
big I figured it had to be a plesiosaur at first.

Anyway, speaking of marine reptiles, there are two nice papers in the
neat volume:

Maddock, L., Q. Bone & J.M.V. Rayner, eds. 1994. Mechanics and Physiology
    of Animal Swimming. Cambridge U. Press. 250 p. ISBN 521-46078-6.

These are a nice review of swimming in tetrapods:

 Taylor, M.A. 1994. Stone, bone or blubber? Bouyancy control strategies
      in aquatic tetrapods. Chapter 11, pp. 151-161.

and a nice paper by Judy Massare:

 Massare, J.A. 1994. Swimming capabilities of Mesozoic marine reptiles:
      a review. Chapter 10, pp. 133-149.

One of the editors, Quentin Bone, has what must be the greatest name
for a VP or VZ type to have.

Oh, and on Friends last night Ross had to fly to China to talk the
Chinese out of a bone. Actually, we would tend to negotiate for casts
these days or only borrow them.

Your humble servant,  Ralph Chapman, NMNH