Re: segnosaurs

["Tim Williams" <T.Williams@cclru.randwick.unsw.edu.au>]

>     I find it hard to imagine dinosaurs as large as the segnosaurs 
> existing on insects. 

Yep, so do I.  Unless Cretaceous termites came extra-large, I don't 
think a hungry _Therizinosaurus_ could have gone too far on a diet 
consisting solely of white-ants.

>     I find the notion of the Coelurosauria a bit dated nowadays, 
> since reading Paul's PDW.  

A revised Coelurosauria proposed by Tom Holtz is similar to Greg 
Paul's Avetheropoda - but it includes both large and small theropods. 
It includes most of the "traditional" coelurosaurs, as well as 
segnosaurs and tyrannosaurs.

Segnosaurs were at first lumped among the carnosaurs, but this was an 
unashamedly provisional classification.  But I thought Paul's view of 
the Segnosauria as ornithischian-sauropodomorph transitional forms 
was also a bit dated.  As I understand it, the inclusion of segnosaurs 
in the Coelurosauria was prompted (at least partly) by the discovery 
of a good skull from _Erlikosaurus_, which shows several coelurosaur-
like features.