Thank you Dr Tom!

["John V Jackson" <jjackson@interalpha.co.uk>]

It was good to see the mention of alternatives within the "Birds are Dinos"
camp, in the MSNBC piece.  Thanks Tom!  It was very much appreciated.  While
it signalled no scientific development per se, it followed the accepted
principles of good science in giving a reasonable hearing, and it was no
surprise to see Tom taking the lead in this.  (Bit of a coincidence to see
"Contintental drift" mentioned like that though!)

But that was not by any means the only interesting bit from him I read over
the weekend:

 Subject: Re: Tyrannosaurs and Carnosaurs in Morrison
 From: "Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>
 Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 12:35:06 -0500 (EST)
 At 08:48 AM 2/11/99 -0800, Larry Dunn wrote:
 >---tsg94001@uconnvm.uconn.edu wrote:
 >> _Stokesosaurus_ of the Morrison...
etc.
[snip]


>One thing: there is no evidence for an "Asiamerica" at the end of the
>Jurassic.  Asiamerica is strictly a Late K phenomenon.  Preliminary studies
>show that Asia is faunally the most distinct region in the Late Jurassic
and
>Early K among well studied assemblages, and that North America was more
>similar to Africa and Europe during the Jurassic, to just Europe in the
>early part of the Early K, and basically on its own during the late Early
K.

Well, "most distinct" doesn't mean isolated, I know, but it is interesting
to consider the significance of this on feathered forms.  With Archaeopteryx
in Europe (not to mention possibly elsewhere) and Caudipteryx et al in Asia
at the J-K boundary, if they both inherited their flight feathers from a
non-flying common ancestor it must probably have been before the late J.
If flight feathers evolved in the latest J, presumably something must have
breached the Europe/Asia "barrier".


I found this searching on Altavista (I don't rate Yahoo for dino stuff):

T. Mike Keesey wrote this on Fri, 21 Nov 1997 10:34:19 -0500 (EST)
Re: Megaraptor"?

>Ever since I started listing unnamed species on my dinosaur pages, I've
>noticed that the Dromaeosauridae seems to have more than its share.
>There're ones from Africa, France, Japan, Mongolia, and, until recently,
>Argentina. Also the possible close relatives from Madagascar (flying
>sickle-claw) and the U.S.A. ("Linsterosaurus"). And there's also one from
>Australia? Why are there so many?


>From the current Dinosauricon http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~tkeese1/dinosaur :

    "unnamed deinonychosaur" -- Africa
    "unnamed large deinonychosaur" -- EK (Barremian to Aptian) -- Japan
    "unnamed large deinonychosaur" -- Mongolia
    "unnamed medium-sized deinonychosaur" -- Mongolia
    indeterminate material -- EK (Albian) -- Utah
    teeth -- EK -- Australia
    teeth -- Cretaceous? -- N. America


Ok, teeth.

But Dan Pigdon   dannj@alphalink.com.au  wrote:
Re: Oz dromaeosaurs(Re: Megaraptor)
on: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 08:05:13 +1100

...mentioning  "...the partial humerous from the Giralia ranges in Western
Australia".


Can we take it that dromeosaurs are the most widespread dinosaur type
worldwide, at that time?  Does anything come close to that kind of
distribution - that was not known prior to the late J?


Tom wrote:

Re: "Megaraptor" a dromaeosaur?
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 08:48:58 -0500 (EST)

>>At 02:12 PM 12/17/97 -0500, Mike Keesey wrote:
>>A visitor to my site just forwarded me an article saying that Novas
>>thought "Megaraptor" evolved convergently with dromaeosaurs. Is this true?
>>If so, what does he think "Megaraptor" is? A huge troodontid? What?
>
>Novas has not committed on the subject.  The foot is more gracile than any
typical >dromaeosaurid, but it is not arctometatarsalian.
>
>>Speaking of South American sickle-claws, what happened to
>>"Araucanoraptor"? Dromaeosaur? Troodontid? Something else?
>
>Still.  In.  Prep.  (Geez, folks, patience!).
>

Gracile eh?  As in birds?  I think we can take it that tyrannos never made
it to S.America.  Those write-ups look worth having.  No peace for the
wicked!



JJ