THE HUTT SPEAKS

["Darren Naish" <dwn194@soton.ac.uk>]

I've just returned from Steve Hutt's talk. For me, barely anything
new: it was basically a recounting of the now-familiar
discovery-and-dig stories of, as predicted, his new sauropod and
allosaur. This was coupled with a bit of discussion on early evolution
of dinosaurs and mammals - the erect gait and all that - and the whole
thing ended with the delightful notion that birds evolved from
_Compsognathus_ via a Zdenek Burian painting...

New bits;

1) Hutt has just (like, last week) gotten a big block from the
Island's south coast containing a juvenile pliosaur. Marine reptiles
are barely known from the Isle of Wight, so this is significant - -
and yet another pliosaur find from England to add to the list...

2) Three pretty much complete _Hypsilophodon_ skeletons have also
recently been found, at least one was under a metre long.

3) The brachiosaur (lacks a skull but otherwise looks good) _IS_ a new
genus.

4) The theropod: well, funny thing. Steve actually used the name that
he has coined for this animal, and said that it had been published. I
asked where.  Well, it hasn't *really* been published (the description
is, like I said, IN PRESS)... it's therefore not proper for me to use
this name, and it can't yet be added to any list of published taxa. So
what's new?!

Ooops, I forgot to ask if he knew of the latest on
_Yaverlandia_. Ho-hum, life goes on.

"But first we must eat, come, good food, come..." [For the Jedi it it
time to eat as well. -- Yoda via MR]

DARREN NAISH
dwn194@soton.ac.uk