Re: Dino News Bits

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

>From: steve.cole@genie.geis.com
 > ===================
 > SPINOSAURUS: Ok, ok, we evil military types bombed the thing out of
 > existence before you could get all of the info you would really have
 > liked to have had. I'm sorry. So, and I may be confused here, but
 > DUH, why doesn't someone just go dig up another one?

Find one to dig up, and sombody will.

The problem is that one does not just go out and dig up a specific
dinosaur - one must first *find* it.

 > I'm serious.
 > <smile> You know where the formation he came from was (Morocco, which
 > happens to be a very happily pro-West country), so why hasn't some
 > university ponied up the bucks to send a team out there looking for
 > another one?

Even if they did, there is no reason to suppose they would succeed.

 > Look how many T-rexes have been found after a very few
 > teams started some serious searching.

Mostly because T. rex lived in an area with a high rate of
fossilization, good current exposure, and had a large population.

We are *still* looking for a second Therizinosaurus, for instance.

 >  You really think that two or
 > three teams spending two or three seasons out there couldn't turn one
 > up?

Yes.
 > ===================
 > CHINA: Do these guys write their own rules or what? The Dinosaur
 > Encyclopaedia is full of things like "Kungfoosaurus: Some Chinese guy
 > wrote a magazine article saying he had found it, but he's never told
 > us what it is, so we don't know". Where do they get off putting out
 > names if they don't do the "description" to back them up?

If there is no description, then the name is a nomen nudum, and
the rest of us get to ignore it, as if it didn't exist.
[My dino list will NOT be including nomina nuda].

swf@elsegundoca.attgis.com              sarima@netcom.com

The peace of God be with you.