Re: "Supersaurus"

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

In a message dated 8/16/99 12:02:18 PM EST, tkeese1@gl.umbc.edu writes:

<< _Supersaurus_ is a giant diplodocid, like _Seismosaurus_. _Ultrasauros_
 (which was originally named _Ultrasaurus_, but that name had already been
 given to a dubious Korean sauropod) is a mixture of bones from
 _Supersaurus_ and _Brachiosaurus_. >>

Here is the reference you need:

Curtice, B. D., Stadtman, K. L. & Curtice, L. J., 1996. "A Reassessment of 
Ultrasauros macintoshi (Jensen, 1985)," in Morales, ed., 1996: 87?95.

Morales, M., ed., 1996. The Continental Jurassic, Transactions of the 
Continental Jurassic Symposium, October 21?23, 1996, Museum of Northern 
Arizona, Flagstaff, Arizona, Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin #60: [x] + 
xvi + 588 pp.

Here Supersaurus vivianae is unequivocally referred to the family 
Diplodocidae as a distinctive very large genus and species, and Ultrasauros 
macintoshi is made a junior subjective synonym of Supersaurus vivianae 
because the holotype vertebra of Ultrasauros macintoshi is a diplodocid 
vertebra almost certainly part of the Supersaurus vivianae individual. As we 
all know, two giant sauropods were found in the same quarry, their bones 
jumbled together and difficult to assign to one individual or to the other. 
The second sauropod is referable to Brachiosaurus sp. (not necessarily to 
Brachiosaurus altithorax, however). All the non-diplodocid giant sauropod 
bones (such as a newsworthy scapulocoracoid, which in hindsight the late Jim 
Jensen >should< have made the holotype of Ultrasauros--better chance of 
preserving the generic name) in the quarry probably belong to this 
individual, which is about the same size as the composite Giraffatitan 
brancai (still, but probably incorrectly, known widely as Brachiosaurus 
brancai) skeleton mounted in the Humboldt Museum in Berlin (and in Chicago's 
Field Museum of Natural History).

It is likely that Supersaurus is a junior synonym of Cope's giant 
Amphicoelias, but without better material this cannot be established beyond 
reasonable doubt. Would be useful to compare hyposphene-hypantrum 
articulations in Cope's form with those of Supersaurus--this might be doable 
even from Cope's sketches, in the absence of the actual specimens.