RHABDODON, JACANAS & MORE

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

Trawling through the journals recently, came up with some new stuff I 
haven't seen mentioned on the list. 

Laurent, Y., Calvin, L. and Bilotte, M. 1999. Decouverte d'un 
gisement a vertebres dans le Maastrichtian superieur des 
Petites-Pyrenees. _C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris_ 328: 781-7.

New late Maastrichtian vertebrate fauna from the Petites-Pyrenees 
includes neoselachians, lepisosteids, pleurodire turtles, croc teeth 
(no identification to taxon), and theropods and hadrosaurs. The 
theropod is known from only one small tooth, said to be 
dromaeosaurid-like but (grrr) not figured. Hadrosaurids are 
abundant: lots of skull, vertebrae, a scapula, pubis, several ischia 
and a piece of femur. Appears to be distinct, and differs in tooth 
and femoral characters from _Telmatosaurus_. They note similarity to 
_Orthomerus_ (but regard it a nomen dubium) and further state that 
comparisons with _Pararhabdodon_ are unrewarding (they cite Casanovas 
et al. 1993, the paper in _Paleontologia i Evolutioncio_ that first 
named this taxon, but not the more recent papers establishing 
lambeosaurine identity of the species). 

Big news for ornithopod fans will be....

Garcia, G., Pincemaille, M., Vianey-Liaud, M., Marandat, B., Lorenz, 
E., Cheylan, G., Capetta, H., Michaux, J. and Sudre, J. 1999. 
Decouverte du premier squelette presque complet de _Rhabdodon pricus_ 
(Dinosauria, Ornithopoda) du Maastrichtian inferieur de Provence. _C. 
R. Acad. Sci. Paris_ 328: 415-21.

Yes, _Rhabdodon_ now has a complete skeleton and this is figured in 
the paper. Sadly, at this point the photocopy credit machine had 
refused to accept my money (I'm not kidding) and all that I have of 
the paper - the first page - provides little info. Wonder what they 
make of this animal's systematics. Those of you with free unlimited 
photocopying have no idea how lucky you are.

In one of his recent guidebooks to the Broome Sandstone dino tracks, 
Tony Thulborn (looking fwd to meeting you at SVPCA Tony) mentioned 
that possible thyreophoran trackways had recently been reported from 
Europe, but were unpublished. Now, they are published...

Le Loeuff, J., Lockley, M., Meyer, C. and Petit, J-P. Discovery of a 
thyreophoran trackway in the Hettangian of central France. _C. R. 
Acad. Sci. Paris_ 328: 215-9.

The tracks, from the Dordogne, indicate a large thyreophoran with the 
stegosaur-type reduced hindfoot (phalangeal formula ?-2-2-2-x (to use 
the Padian system - Le Loeuff et al. don't)). A small digit I 
apparently 'variably impressed'. Don't know what they say about the 
hand because, again, don't have the whole paper. The main thrust of 
the paper is their contention that primitive thyreophorans were 
quadrupedal and that phalangeal reduction _preceded_ digit reduction. 
Hmm.

Moving to small dinosaurs of the feathery kind..

Mlikovsky, J. 1999. A new jacana (Aves: Jacanidae) from the Early 
Miocene of the Czech Republic. _C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris_ 328: 121-3.

Mlikovsky has been doing some cool stuff recently - I particularly 
like his work on eagles - and this paper, which described the new 
species _Nupharanassa bohemica_ - is the latest in a number of 
contributions on the Czech fossil avifauna. Based on a tiny (3.9 mm 
wide) tarsomet, _N. bohemica_ is the first fossil jacana from Europe. 
Other nupharanassas are from the early Oligocene of Egypt. Briefly 
reviews all five fossil jacana species (a sixth, _Rhegminornis 
calobates_, has been reclassified as a tiny turkey).

Another new paper I have seen (but not copied) is a Buffetaut and 
Suteethorn review on Thai dinosaurs in _Palaeo3_. Figures new stuff 
from _Phuwiangosaurus_ (included the premaxillary tooth array. Wow - 
sure looks diplodociform) as well as _Siamotyrannus_, but does not 
mention at all doubts about the putative tyrannosaurid idenitity of 
the latter. Figures more stuff of the ornithomimid they previously 
noted in the Chinese _Symposium on Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems_ 
volume.

Leaving Dinosauria altogether...

Antunes, M.T. and Cahuzac, B. 1999. Crocodilian faunal renewal in the 
Upper Oligocene of western Europe. _C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris_ 328: 
67-73.

The presence of tomistomine teeth in the Upper Oligocene of the 
Aquitaine Basin, France, leads the authors to propose that this group 
invaded Europe from Asia at 26 Mya. They use the presence of 
_Tomistoma_ (there is discussion of how this identity was arrived at, 
the ID seems Ok from my limited perspective) to confirm the 
subtropical nature of Europe at this time, and also suggest that the 
invasion event accompanied climatic warming. 

Finally, I doubt if anyone will remember (Pieter Depuydt and I had a 
bit of a discussion about it ages ago), but years back - just after 
the very first Symposium on Secondary Adaptation to Life in Water 
occurred in Poitiers - I mentioned work by Elizabeth Nicholls on a 
supposedly marine rauisuchian. Having now read the paper on 
_Sikannisuchus_, an animal already mentioned recently on the list (by 
Ralph I think), I see that this *IS* that 'marine rauisuchian'. See 
the discussion bit at the end: the authors disagree with one another 
about whether or not _Sikannisuchus_ really was fully marine.

That's that, gotta go. The wookies are in the top left corner (one 
stands up just after the Supreme Chancellor sinks into his chair), 
the Spielbergian ExtraTerrestrials ("phone home") are in the bottom 
left. I saw them both last night, oh yes.

DARREN NAISH 
PALAEOBIOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP
School of Earth, Environmental & Physical Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH
Burnaby Building
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http://www.naish-zoology.com]