Re: Erlic/kosaurus

[jrw6f@faraday.clas.virginia.edu]

Peter Bucholtz said:

>Please, Please, PLEASE don't spell _Erlikosaurus_ with a 'c', it is
>WRONG!!!

        I seem to recall someone (TR Holtz?) pointing out the name is
misspelled in the beginning of the document describing it, and under
one of the ICZN rules ("Page number priority" or something like that),
the first spelling ever has priority.
 
>Sorry, for the rant.....  My source is Nick Pharris who I believe

        Where *IS* he, the darned undergrad!  Nick, you out there?

[No, currently he is not receiving mail from the list.  -- MR]

>said that Phil Currie said that _Erlikosaurus_' braincase and
>cranial nerve anatomy were very similar to birds.  I think they are
>bullatosaurs because of their enlarged parasphenoids (like Troodonts
>etc..).

        The illustration in _The Dinosauria_ shows an enlarged
BASIshpenoid.  I have been pretty unsure about how to interpret this.
If anyone on the list has any suggestions...
        A discussion such as this ought to be tempered by a comparison
with a wider range of theropod brainscases (difficult, yes).
Obviously most theropods are extremely birdlike.  Currie's comment may
help ally Segnosaurs with theropods, but can do little else without
further exposition.

>No no no... Norway and Lithuania are in northern Europe, England is in the
>middle (I know it's not Really...), but I call it southern anyway.

        So if I call Southern Europe Africa, then spinosaurs were
never found in Europe at all!  :)

Dinogeorge said:

>An inflated basisphenoid capsule and other advanced theropod
>features of the skull of _Erlikosaurus_ are almost certainly not
>homologies. Any anatomist
[snip]
>Dinosaur skulls are outrageously variable and any supposed cranial
>synapomorphies uniting taxa above the generic level require more
>salt grains than usual.

        And yet, as we tune our understanding of theropod taxonomy, we
find ever greater numbers of clear synapomorphies, both in the skull
and the postcranial skeleton.  While it would be foolish to base a
phylogeny on only a few characters (see the Archaeornithoides paper,
where cranial characters lead the authors to hypothesize a close
relationship between Troodontids and spinosaurs), the addition of
postcranial features will clear things up well.  In this case, it
seems that postcranial features are pushing us to the conclusion that
segnosaurs are derived coelurosaurian theropods.

Of course, I could be completely wrong...
Wagner
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