Re: Philippine Star news: dinosaur eggs stolen

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

At 08:49 AM 7/30/99 -0500, Tim Williams wrote:
>
>There is an ulna from the Otway Group in Victoria (southeast Australia), of 
>Aptian/Albian (late Early Cretaceous) age.  The ulna is almost identical to 
>that of Leptoceratops, so it's provisionally regarded as ceratopsian.
>
>Even if it is ceratopsian I doubt that it's the earliest known ceratopsian 
>fossil in the world.  _Psittacosaurus_ and _Archaeoceratops_ are at least 
>contemporary.

In fact, as _Psittacosaurus_ occurs in the Yixian Fm., a unit that seems to
be Barremian aged (due to Swisher et al.'s new radiometric dates), it is
older than the Apt./Alb. Aussie ceratopsian-like ulna.

Raymond Ancog wrote:
>Were there Triceratops in China? 

There is no evidence of this.  I expect this is a mix-up on the part of the
press, the rock shop owners, and others involved.  I expect that the buyers
were told that they were "ceratopsian eggs" or "_Protoceratops_ eggs", which
phrase was mutated into "_Triceratops_ eggs".  (Whether they were actual
ceratopsian eggs is another matter entirely: at least some rock shop owners
are unaware of the previous work reidentifying traditional "_Protoceratops_
eggs" as oviraptorosaur eggs).

Keep us posted on new details.

                        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