Re: Monolophosaurus

["Nicholas J. Pharris" <pharrinj@PLU.edu>]

On Sun, 4 Feb 1996, Adam Yates wrote:

> 
> 
> On Sat, 3 Feb 1996 Popwelljg@aol.com wrote:
> 
> > I'm about to receive a model of Monolophosaurus from Saurian Studios. I
> > haven't been able to find much info on it, except that it was related to
> > Allosaurus, Eustreptospondylus, or Megalosaurus. Any thing else out there?
> > 
> Monolophosaurus is (or was?) clearly a tetanuran theropod, that is more 
> closely related to birds than to Ceratosaurus. Sereno (in the paper 
> describing Afrovenator) placed it with Allosaurus in the Allosauridae. 
> However it seems to me to be far too primitive for that. For example the 
> ischium has no obturator process and the obturator process on the pubis 
> is still closed. I think Tom Holtz's opinion (expressed in a posting 
> last year) is closer to the mark, that is Monolophosaurus is the closest 
> outgroup to the Avetheropoda (Carnosauria plus Coelurosauria).
> 

I interpreted Tom as saying that _Monolophosaurus_ was the sister group 
to the rest of the Carnosauria, and that sounds reasonalbe to me, too.

> Adam Yates  
> 

Nick Pharris
Pacific Lutheran University
Tacoma, WA 98447
(206)535-8204
PharriNJ@PLU.edu

"If you can't convince them, confuse them." -- Harry S. Truman