N. AMERICAN SPINOSAURS

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

It is an amazing 'coincidence' that _Lepidotes_ and its relatives 
(the semionotids) became extinct at the same time as spinosauroids, 
as we now know thanks to Eaton et al. (1997). Once again I am 
reminded of that quote in Grande and Beamis (1998) about *patterns in 
nature* demanding explanations. 

Thomas Holtz wrote..

> I'm willing to bet that _Baryonyx_ or related spinosaurid will show 
> up in the Lakota Fm. or Yellow Cat Member of the Cedar Mountain Fm. 
> or similar aged unit from western North America.  Some of the same 
> herbivorous dinosaurs are there as in the Wessex & Vectis Fms. 
> (upper Wealden), some of the same fish, so I wouldn't be surprised 
> if some of the same carnivores were as well.

Jim Kirkland then confirmed that he thinks much the same: Jim, has 
this been published? I'd like a ref if possible (as you'd guess, this 
is all very important to those of us working on the Wealden 
theropods). Anyway, I'm real pleased to hear you guys say this, as I 
have made the same suggestion, and have sort of gotten it in print 
(in an abstract). The ref for this is:-

NAISH, D. 1998. Predatory dinosaurs in England's Lower Cretaceous: 
crocodile heads, puffin snouts and the odd Lazarus taxon. IN ANON. 
_Cretaceous Biodiversity, Programme and Abstracts to 1998 Summer 
Workshop_ University of Portmouth (Portsmouth, UK), supplement 1.

The relevant passage reads:

'Dromaeosaurids and carcharodontosaurids are expected to be present 
in Wealden Group faunas in view of their prevalence in the Cedar 
Mountain Formation (Albian) of Utah and Cloverly Formation (Albian) 
of Montana, and indeed some preliminarily described material 
indicates that they are. Likewise it is possible that baryonychids 
were a part of Wealden-equivalent North American faunas' (Naish 
1998).

Other speculations might concern _Microvenator_-like oviraptorosaurs, 
dromaeosaurids and the very unusual new Wealden theropod we are 
working on at the moment. Stay tuned for news on all! Incidentally, 
at SVPCA I asked Dr. David Norman about his views on _Iguanodon 
lakotaensis_ (in the _Altirhinus_ paper he synonymises it with _I. 
bernissartensis_, meaning that we have the same dinosaur SPECIES in 
both Lower K N. America and Europe). He confirmed that both were 
extremely similar.

"... it cannot be denied that while the average fossil specimen may 
not supply as much information (as many characters for analysis) as 
the average neontological specimen, palaeontology does contribute a 
wealth of organisms that would not be known otherwise" (Schoch 1986).

DARREN NAISH
darren.naish@port.ac.uk