COMPLETE GORGONOPSIANS

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

Every now and again I think we can be allowed to discuss synapsids 
and, even worse, synapsids that were around before dinosaurs.

The new ish of _Discover_ (April 1999, Vol. 20 (4)) has a short 
article on p. 24 concerning Peter Ward's discovery of a COMPLETE 
'gorgon' skeleton. Ward warns that the body may look very different 
from previous best guesses - it is emphasised in the article that all 
previous gorgonopsian discoveries were either of skulls or isolated 
bits of postcrania.. I didn't know this was the case (you wouldn't 
think it from all the _Lycaenops_ reconstructions in the literature).

Accompanying Steve Kirk artwork features two _Lycaenops_ lookalikes 
tearing chunks from a dead pareisaur. I don't like it when Steve Kirk 
tries to put too much perspective into his pieces.

"The common experience of taxonomists is that characters disagree"

DARREN NAISH
darren.naish@port.ac.uk