Re: Torvosauroidea was [R: Torvosaurus & Giganotosaurus]

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <th81@umail.umd.edu>]

At 12:45 PM 7/24/99 +0200, Alessandro Marisa wrote:

>Well, first of all Paul illustration on Torvosaurus is beautifull, but there
>are some question that I don't have an answer, first, is a lot of time that
>on the web I see in the Theropoda classification that there are a strange
>clade (for me) the Torvosauroidea (Torvosauridae + Spinosauridae) I have
>read the cranial anatomy on Torvosaurus, in Britt 1991, (and stay to read
>the axial and appendicular anatomy) but I don't see any similarities with
>the Spinosauridae, please, does someone tell me what is the characters that
>unites Torvosauridae with Spinosauridae in the clade Torvosauroidea or
>Spinosauroidea?

My references are currently packed away due to my moving offices, but among
other characters Sereno et al. use to link _Torvo._, _Eustrepto._, and
Spinosauridae are: elongated rostral ramus of maxilla; enlarged and
elongated thumb claw; pinched rostral ramus of lacrimal.  (A previously
reported character, the reduced size of the quadrate foramen, might apply to
"Torvosauridae", but is not found in Spinosauridae).

>I think that is much probable that Spinosauridae can be a lineage with the
>ancestor within the Coelophysoidea expecially in the "Halticosaurinae" (es.
>presence of a subnarial gap, presence of a sagittal crest etc), and
>Torvosauridae have the ancestor within Ceratosauridae.

Yikes!!  No, both spinosaurids and torvosaurids have numerous features
making them closer to birds, carnosaurs, and the like than to ceratosaurs.

                        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology                   Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland                  College Park Scholars
College Park, MD  20742       
Webpage: http://www.geol.umd.edu        Phone:301-405-4084
Email:tholtz@geol.umd.edu               Fax:  301-314-9661