JVP 19(2)

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

Morning, all.

The latest Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (vol. 19, issue 2) is in.
This issue is dominated by "fishy" papers: placoderms, lungfish,
coelacanths, the new cladistian _Serenoichthyes_ (named for dino
paleontologist Paul Sereno), paramblypertids, holocentrids, pikes, and
cichlids.  I'm sure the paleoichthyologists are happy after many an issue
dominated by dino or mammal papers!

Among the mammal papers is one of interest to dinosaur fans:
Cifelli, R. L., T. R. Lipka, C. R. Schaff & T. B. Rowe. First Early
Cretaceous mammal from the eastern seaboard of the United States. 199-203.
Describes _Arundelconodon hottoni_, found by the dino list's own Tom Lipka,
and discovered about 10-20 minutes up the road from my office!  From the
Aptian Arundel Clay, a tiny little triconodont mammaliform (aka dino fodder).

The only paper on non-avian dinosaurs is the following short note:
Smith, D. K. Patterns of size-related variation within _Allosaurus_. 402-403.
Finds less variation in shape of skull elements of an _Allosaurus_
population is explained by size changes than in other parts of the body.

And for birds, there is:
Tambussi, C., M. Ubilla & D. Perea.  The youngest carnassial bird
(Phorusrhacidae, Phorusrhacinae) from South America (Pliocene-Early
Pleistocene of Uruguay).
Title tells all.

Also of interest to many people on the list are:
Rieppel, O. The sauropterygian genera _Chinchenia_, _Kwangsisaurus_, and
_Sanchiaosaurus_ from the Lower and Middle Triassic of China. 321-337.
Two pistosauroids and a nothosauroid.

Hurlburt, G. Comparison of body mass estimation techniques, using Recent
reptiles and the pelycosaur _Edaphosaurus boangerges_. 338-350.
Finds that Graphic Double Integration was the best method of various tried
in recovering the known masses of living specimens, and recommends it for
cases when complete restorations based on relatively complete skeletons are
known.  Incidentally, finds a mass of 92.79 kg for a specimen of
_Edaphosaurus_ (ROM 7985) using GDI, but lower using allometric equations
from limb bones based on modern alligators or modern mammals.

Larsson, H. C. E. & C. A. Sidor. Unusual crocodyliform teeth from the Late
Cretaceous (Cenomanian) of southeastern Morocco. 398-401.
Some weird croc teeth from the same beds producing _Deltadromeus_,
_Carcharodontosaurus_, & company.  Some are caniniform; others short, fat,
and round.

And speaking of crocodyliforms...

Accompanying this issue is a memior of the SVP, in two parts.  The first is
a CD-ROM digital atlas of the skull of _Alligator mississippiensis_,
containing CT scans through the skull in various directions.  The text
reference is:
Rowe, T., C. A. Brochu, M. Colbert, J. W. Merck, Jr., K. Kishi, E. Saglamer
& S. Warren. 1999. Introduction to _Alligator: Digital Atlas of the Skull_.
Mem. SVP 6: 1-8.

Unfortunately, my copy of the disc (and many others, I hear) was damaged in
shipping.

Making up the body of the memoir is:
Brochu, C. A. 1999.  Phylogenetics, taxonomy, and historical biogeography of
Alligatoroidea.  Mem. SVP 6: 9-100.
Much coolness with regards to alligatoroid phylogeny.  For those interested
in really big crocodylians, giant Mio-Pliocene Amazonian _Purussaurus_ turns
out to be a super-caiman and sister taxon to the duck-billed caimans (!) and
_Deinosuchus_ (the giant Late Cretaceous "crocodile") is a primitive
alligatoroid.  As Brochu points out, removal of _Deinosuchus_ from
Crocodyloidea means the latter group does not have any unequivocally giant
members, whereas there are several cases of giant alligatoroid.


                        Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                        Vertebrate Paleontologist
Deptartment 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