Re: Paw Paw pterosaur question

[Shawn Patrick Zack <spz@acpub.duke.edu>]

On Thu, 2 Oct 1997 Pieter.Depuydt@rug.ac.be wrote:

> Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 11:13:36 +0000
> From: Pieter.Depuydt@rug.ac.be
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Paw Paw pterosaur question
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> While reading Lee's description of Pawpawsaurus (JVP June 1996), I 
> was struck by Fig 2 (a stratigraphic section of the Paw Paw 
> formation, Upper Albian, Texas), in which a pterosaur snout is 
> figured. This pterosaur snout (SMU 73058) has apparently been  named 
> Coloborhynchus wadleighi. Could someone provide more information 
> about this pterosaur material/taxon or point me to a reference? 
> Are there other vertebrate remains known from the PawPaw formation, 
> besides this pterosaur, Pawpawsaurus, and further indeterminate 
> nodosaurid material?
> Thank you in advance.
> 

The pterosaur snout was named and described in one of the 1995 issues of 
Palaeontology.  It's an amazing specimen if for no other reason than the 
fact that it's not squashed flat like a lot of pterosaur material.

As far as the Pawpaw Formation itself goes, there are vertebrates other 
than nodosaurs and pterosaurs.  I've collected in the formation on many 
occasions, and it's full of shark teeth and various pieces of bony 
fish.  The only higher vertebrates I know of besides nodosaurs and 
pterosaurs are some pieces of protostegid marine turtles (There was an 
abstract on these in SVP a few years ago by Parris, I think).  There is, 
however, a diverse terrestrial vertebrate fauna from the slightly younger 
Woodbine Formation, also exposed in the Dallas area.  The archosaurs 
(hadrosaurs, nodosaurs, theropods, and crocs) in that 
fauna were described in Lee's dissertation, along with Pawpawsaurus and
Cobolorhynchus wadleighi.

                                --Shawn Zack