Re: besides mamenschisaurus

[Jonathon Woolf <jwoolf@erinet.com>]

Sam j hogan wrote:
> 
> I don't actually have the book, but the description sounds suspiciously
> like the mounting found in the atrium of the American Museum of Natural
> History in New York City.  Is the Mamenchisaurus  (identified as
> Barosurus in the museum's display) rearing up to defend itself and its
> offspring from the theropod?  If it is, then it's the same display.  In
> this case, the theropod is _Allosaurus_ (fragillis?).

I didn't get that from the description, Sam.  I didn't get it from the
photograph, either.  The mamenchisaur and the theropod are simply in
conventional mounts, more or less side by side, not a "lifelike" display
like the AMNH _Barosaurus_.

The theropod in question looks strongly allosaurish to me, but I know
zip about how to distinguish big allosaurish theropods.  It's big, it's
got a heavy skull with lots of teeth, and it has three-fingered hands. 
That's all I can tell about it from the photo.  Being in the Beijing
Museum means it's certainly Chinese.  Three fingers means it isn't
_Tarbosaurus_, which is the only Chinese theropod I could identify from
a photograph, and that only because of the tyrannosaurid two-fingered
hands.  Lambert's ULTIMATE DINOSAUR BOOK says that _Yangchuanosaurus_
comes from the same formation as _Mamenchisaurus_.  _Yangchuanosaurus_
is a big allosaurish theropod.  Given all that, I think T.A. Curtis's
identification of that skeleton as a _Yangchuanosaurus_ is about as good
a guess as any, and more likely than most.

-- JSW