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RE: what if?



> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> thescelosaurus@juno.com
>
>    My question is, then: How would dinosaur paleontology be different if
> Brown had published his "Daptosaurus" in the 1930s, instead of Ostrom
> publishing *Deinonychus* in 1969?-*Thescelosaurus*

If the "Daptosaurus" material found in the 1930s had been published, then
not too much would have been different: the material was far from complete,
and many of the most significant features of dromaeosaurids are not preseved
in the would-have-been-holotype.  After all, the fragmentary holotypes of
_Dromaeosaurus_ and _Velociraptor_ (and the other maniraptorans _Oviraptor_
and _Saurornithoides_) were all known since the 1920s without producing the
"Renaissance" that the more complete _Deinonychus_ material did.

Now, had Brown found more complete "Daptosaurus" material, I think the
Renaissance could have happened earlier.  I suppose had he found such
fossils, he would have been more encouraged to publish them quickly, rather
than keeping them on the publication "backburner".

(By the same token, discovery of complete _Velociraptor_ skeletons by the
Central Asiatic Expeditions of the AMNH in the 1920s, or feathered Liaoning
specimens at almost any earlier date, might have also generated a similar
result).

Alternate paleontological history...

(Now, for some ugly alternate paleo historical thoughts: what if we had been
stuck with the names _Agathaumas_ and _Manospondylus_ rather than the more
elegant _Triceratops_ and _Tyrannosaurus_?!).

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.inform.umd.edu/SCHOLAR/programs/elt.html
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796