Re: Explodosaurus fracturis

["Barry Kazmer" <kazmer@hotmail.com>]

Now I know what my mystery fossils are!!!!! And I think I 
have some related plesiosaurs in my study site. Thanks, 
Barry




----Original Message Follows----
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 21:30:38 -0700 (MST)
Reply-To: wgp@dana.ucc.nau.edu
From: William Gibson Parker <wgp@dana.ucc.nau.edu>
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Explodosaurus fracturis

Dinosauria

Explodosaurus fracturis gen. et sp. nov.

Etymology:Explodosaurus- 'exploded lizard' refers to the 
diagnostic
character of the fossil.  fracturis (Spanish) 'fractured'

Horizon + Locality: Permian, Mesozoic formations 
worldwide.

Discussion: Explodosaurus fracturis is extremely common in 
the fossil
record, found worldwide in a wide range of stratigraphic 
levels.  The
fossil is always found in piles consisting of a few to 
hundreds of small
fragments.  It is theorised here that upon death the 
animal would explode
into thousands of small pieces making identification 
impossible.
Fortunately this is the diagnostic character of the fossil 
allowing it to
be readily identified as E. fracturis.  The diet of E. 
fracturis is not
determinable due to the fact that no teeth have ever been 
found that can
be attributed to E. fracturis.  Even when teeth are found 
in situ with the
specimen they can always be attributed to another species 
and therefore
must occur post-mortem.  As such pictoral recreations of 
this animal are
almost impossible to determine which is unfornatunate for 
the reason that
is many faunal assemblages E. fracturis is the most common 
animal. :-)

-Bill Parker
Northern Arizona University

Please excuse the errors, this of course is in fun and 
allows for
immediate identification of all those fossils in the 
field, we all know
the ones!





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