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Went to mini conf "Cretaceous
Biodiversity", and trip to Isle of Wight fossiliferous areas near chines (a
chine is a flooded valley running typically through shaley cliffs to the sea, it
seems). I still maintain I. of W. is on the Sth coast of England, off
Hampshire, but that's just my opinion :-).
Conf: Due to Darren's thoughtless
announcement of the conf only on the day that it started, I missed all the best
bits. (Next time, how about a couple of weeks in advance eh? You did
see me on Mon & Tue of this week and never thought to mention it !!??
And the announced days were wrong too.) However, though I missed Paul
Davis's talk on the Chinese birds, I did discover he thinks ALL the Yixian and
Jiufuotang birds are enants, including _Chaoyangia_! This is based on the
analysis of a large number of characters. But it is now the only enant
with uncinated ribs. I cannot approve.
David Unwin confirmed that Cretaceous pterosaurs were big and
J ones were small, and suggested that some small K ones might be young.
(To me, no doubt about it, the role of small flier was invaded by birds in the
K, and they had not mastered full flight much prior to Archaeopteryx - though
they were probably doing something aerial for a long time, but in a small
way. Their absence from pterosaur bearing deposits is very suspicious . .
. though there is still just a tiny possibility that they might have escaped
notice somehow.)
Darren describes _Baryonyx_ as a facultative (ie optional)
quadruped.
"The" "New"
theropod from the I.o.W:
About 60% - 70% has been found.
It's jumbled, along with . . .
hypsolophodontid(?)
It is about Deinonychus size (3m) but is not any kind of
dromeosaur. (Its thumb is perhaps on the slender side of average though,
and has a hookish claw. [. . . It's known to Scotland Yard and is the
terror of the law?])
It is not any kind of
anything else yet known either (certainly not a cat contra papers), which is
interesting in itself.
It has unusual aspects (though this may simply
be a restatement of the above).
That's all folks till the
official publication (next millnm).
Describer yet to be confirmed.
In the pub, it appeared that
most people (not including any of the speakers it goes without saying) had a
pronounced revulsion for cladistics, though they would not necessarily want this
to get out. "The hatred that dare not speak its name".
It appears that no-one in the world is working on early K
beetles.
There will be a new BBC Horizon screened in October about John
Ostrom and his revolutionary theory that dinos and birds may be related.
(Grrrr! I'm paying for this, you know! Do you know, the makers went
over to USA to talk to the "Experts" and not one of them even
mentioned K-BCF. In case you weren't sure, that's a shameless dereliction
of duty and a downright disgrace.) There will also be a series of half a
dozen 30min computer generated films about dinos in a couple of years.
Can't say for sure whether this will include any truths more recent than 1973,
but I'm working on it.
JJ
"Ohhhh . . . yes, since wayback. Just
to give you an idea, I was on the list when Dinogeorge Digest #1
appeared!"
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