Re: R: R: "Supersaurus"

["T. Mike Keesey" <tkeese1@gl.umbc.edu>]

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, Alessandro Marisa wrote:

> Please tell me if I'm right, but some time ago on this list I can see that
> Ultrasaurus is from the Dry Mesa Quarry, but Ultrasauros is another animal
> found in Thailand?

You have the names switched, and it's Korea, not Thailand. IIRC, the
Korean scientists thought they had a huge sauropod arm bone of the same
kind as the then-not-officially-named _Ultrasaurus_. Thus, they described
it as a species of _Ultrasaurus_, inadvertently coining the genus. It
turned out to be the leg bone of an average-sized sauropod. Later the
American sauropod (now known to be a chimera of _Supersaurus_ and
_Brachiosaurus_) was described as _Ultrasaurus_, but since the name was
taken, it had to be re-dubbed _Ultrasauros_.

May be some errors there, but I think that's right.

--T. Michael Keesey
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