Re: "Daptosaurus" (was Re: Dromaeosaur "sickle" claws)

["Peter Von Sholly" <vonrex@gte.net>]

Mentions of "Daptosaurus" may exist but they are damn few and far between.
You mention one (in 1989) and the book I cited is from 1995.  That's not
much and it's a long time after Ostrom's hoopla.
I refer people to the source of my "information", I didn't expect to have
re-presented everything perfectly or instead of the source (sorry if I said
"studied" instead of "formally studied" and I meant bones had been drilled,
not "mounted" for display.)
And I almost never see that toe illustrated in any position but
hyperextension, although things are slowly relaxing since the days of
Bakker's famous first ridiculous drawing.  
My point is that I think it should be part of the common story of
Deinonyshcus to give its history more readily and completely>
 From: Thomas R. Holtz, Jr. <th81@umail.umd.edu>
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu; vonrex@gte.net
> Subject: "Daptosaurus" (was Re: Dromaeosaur "sickle"  claws)
> Date: Monday, August 25, 1997 5:53 AM
> 
> At 01:30 PM 8/24/97 -0700, you wrote:
> >Also I find it a little disturbing that no mention seems to
> >be made anywhere of "Daptosaurus",
> 
> Then how did you know about it...  Norell et al. DID mention it, as did
> Chure & McIntosh (1989), and Ostrom never made a secret of that.
> 
> >found and named by Barnum Brown in 1931,
> >not even as an acknowledgement that "Deinonychus" was already found,
> 
> Yes
> 
> >collected,
> 
> Yes
> 
> >studied,
> 
> No.  No formally study had been completed.  In fact, it only progressed
to
> the very initial stages before Brown abandoned the project.
> 
> >mounted for display,
> 
> Nope.
> 
> >drawn up as a skeletal restoration
> 
> Yes.  That is as far as the work had progressed: individual restorations
of
> some of the bones, and a reconstruction of the skeleton.  To give Brown
> credit (and I am a great admirer of Brown), he gave it the skull of
> _Dromaeosaurus_, despite the fact Brown misidentified all the
_Deinonychus_
> teeth (which show their dromaeosaurid affinity) as coming from what we
now
> call _Microvenator_ (Brown's "Megadontosaurus").
> 
> >etc. a  long time ago.  Ostrom did not discover this animal as we seem
led
> >to believe.
> 
> Ostrom went to work in the Cloverly specifically to search again for
Brown's
> old sites, the best then known from the Lower Cretaceous of western North
> America.
> 
> >I know that Brown didn't publish the name "Daptosaurus" so
> >Ostrom is within his rights to choose his own name, but it wouldn't hurt
to
> >tell the whole story about this animal.  See the book "Disovering
Dinosaurs
> >in the American Museum of Natural History" (Norell, Gaffney, Dingus) pp
> >129-131 for some illuminating information.
> 
> Yes.  You will also find that much of the "information" Sholly presented
was
> his own (incorrect) interpretation of the limited data Norell et al.
offer.
> 
> >Also, in his skeltal
> >restoration, Brown found no need to do anything weird with claw #2, but
set
> >it on the ground as one would expect.
> 
> And, you will notice, the claws were only partially colored in.  Brown
did
> not know about the actual proportions and shape of the _Deinonychus_
claw:
> that was discovered by Ostrom & co. in the 1960s.
> 
> And it was THAT discovery which led to a) modern thinking about the
levels
> of activity of dinosaurs exceeding that of modern cold-blooded animals
and
> later b) the modern thinking of the dinosaurian ancestry of birds.
> 
> >The photo of the pes on page 131
> >looks fine and natural to me, with the #2 toe extended normally like the
> >other two.
> 
> Sure does.  Of course, that foot is in the suspended phase, and is not
walking.
> 
> The joints clearly show the hyperextensibility of the second digit, but
no
> one has suggested that they NEVER brought digit II out of hyperextension.
> 
> Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
> Vertebrate Paleontologist     Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu
> Dept. of Geology              Email:th81@umail.umd.edu
> University of Maryland        Phone:301-405-4084
> College Park, MD  20742       Fax:  301-314-9661