Re: jp: Velociraptor in Montana

[Sam Girouard <sampgir@premier1.net>]

>Now we have a majority of the public
>who think that Velociraptor fossils are found in Montana,

        If you do a bit of research, you'll find that Velociraptor HAS been
reported from Montana. Ken Carpenter identified baby Velociraptor sp. teeth
and dentary fragments from the Hell Creek Formation (Carpenter 1982). If
you consider Saurornitholestes, a velociraptorine dromaeosaur, to be a
junior synonym of Velociraptor (as many do, ie Paul 1988b, the possibility
of synonymy was noted by Sues 1978, and Currie et al. 1990), then
Velociraptor langstoni is known from the Judith River group of Montana too.
Teeth from the Two Medicine Fm. may be Velociraptor too, or a closely
related animal. 
        The "Velociraptor" in Jurassic Park was based ENTIRELY on Deinonychus.
Spielberg preferred its size and proportions to the more svelte and much
smaller Velociraptor. The name "Velociraptor" was used in the film because:

1. Velociraptor was in the book, so to reduce confusion and to preserve
continuity the name was retained.

2. The film's producers embraced Paul's (1988a) synonymy of Deinonychus and
Velociraptor, a synonymy that has not been generally accepted by the
scientific community. Paul may even have abandoned his position on this
issue, I don't know.

3. "Deinonychus" does not lend itself as well to catchy and marketable (but
scientifically nebulous) buzz words like "Raptor"(TM) as does Velociraptor. 

References:
Carpenter, K., 1982. Baby dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous Lance and Hell
Creek Formations and a description of a new species of theropod.
Contributions to Geology, University of Wyoming, v. 20, no. 2, pp. 123-134.

Currie, P. J., Rigby, J. K. Jr., and Sloan, R. E., 1990. Theropod teeth
from the Judith River Formation of southern Alberta, Canada. In Dinosaur
Systematics: Perspectives and Approaches, Kennth Carpenter and Philip J.
Currie, eds. Cambridge University Press, pp. 107-125.

Paul, G. S., 1988a. Predatory Dinosaurs of the World. New York: Simon and
Schuster.

Paul, G. S., 1988b. The small predatory dinosaurs of the mid-Mesozoic: The
horned theropods of the Morrison and Great Oolite- Ornitholestes and
Proceratosaurus- and the scicle clawed theropods of the Cloverly,
Djadokhta, and Judith River- Deinonychus, Velociraptor, and
Saurornitholestes. Hunteria, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 1-9.

Sues, H.-D., 1978. A new small theropod dinosaur from the Judith River
(Campanian) of Alberta. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, vol. 62,
pp. 381-400.