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Albertosaurus, or not
I just got my photos back of the A. sarcophagus maxilla and dentary from the
ROM. Incidentally, the ROM has a new mount of the MOR 555 T. rex that is
just fantastic. The people of Research Casting Internation really did a good
job. IMHO, it is the best mount around.
My question has to do with the "bulldog" face that A. sarcophagus is
supposed to have that G./A. libratus lacks. Just looking at the maxillae of
the two, unscientifically (I have no measurements), they do not look much
different to me. Would I have to look at other bones of the skull to see a
more pronounced pug in sarcophagus? It does look a little bit more
shortened, but with the variation seen in the confirmed T. rex skulls, I am
not sure if it would be out of the range of variation. The only picture of
a skull of A. sarcophagus that I have is a tiny picture in the casting
catalogue from the RTMP that I have. It is so small that it can hardly be
used for discussion.
Incidentally, I compared it with pictures of the skulls of libratus from the
ROM, the AMNH, and the FMNH's whatever-it-is-being-called-now. I wish I
could convince somebody that I should be allowed to study the real
specimens. Being untrained in doing so, I found it difficult to compare the
crushed maxilla of the type of G. libratus from the 1917 article to my
picture. That skull kind of looks like the skunk's I hit in the summer.
I am also checking to see if I missed the boat somewhere. Thank you.
Darryl
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"the truth is, I don't really care how the dinosaurs died.
I'm interested in how they lived." (Dr. John R. Horner,
from the Complete T.rex, 1993)
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The two most common elements in the universe are
hydrogen and stupidity.
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dinoguy@interlog.com