Re: COMPLETE GORGONOPSIANS

["Patrick Norton" <ptnorton@email.msn.com>]

No names attributed, but............

>EEEeekkkk!!< [times 2 or 3, or more....]

and.....

>BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA<

Give me a break!  Cut it out.  Do you scream like this in class?


-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan R. Wagner <znc14@TTACS.TTU.EDU>
To: Jonkeria@aol.com <Jonkeria@aol.com>
Cc: dinosaur@usc.edu <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Date: Friday, March 26, 1999 3:06 PM
Subject: Re: COMPLETE GORGONOPSIANS


>Christian Kammerer wrote
>>Unlike things such as ceratopsians and hadrosaurs, many
>>of the genera are not distinguished by really clear features in the skulls
>>either,
>
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>        Sorry, a bit of ironic, quasi-hysterical laughter. Yeah, there do
>seem to be a lot of features of the skulls of hadrosaurs that might be
>taxonomically useful... IF THEY WERE EVER DESCRIBED. Anybody ever checked
>out Lambe's original description of _Gryposaurus (=Kritosaurus) notabilis_?
>He doesn't even describe the maxilla! Hadrosaur skulls are prone to being
>poorly described, incompletely prepared and unsatisfactorally documented in
>general. Suuuuure, you think they're all peachy keen easy to deal with
>because they have those distinct rostra. Well, lemme tell you folks out
>there, it's really hard to deal with a hadrosaur when you don't have the
>rostrum. A lot of effort has been put into describing the nasal
>extravagences of hadrosaurs, but so much less attention has been lavished
on
>their equally fantastic entire-rest-of-the-skeleton. Now, if you happen to
>live in Tyrell-land, with dozens of specimens to play with that's one
thing.
>However, for those of us pukes down in Texas, well, we are forced to
chortle
>at such generalizations.
>        Now, I suppose gorgonopSians do have hadrosaurs beat, but we all
>have our crosses to bear. Mine is an unsurprisingly rostrum-poor cross.
>
>        Wagner
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>     Jonathan R. Wagner, Dept. of Geosciences, TTU, Lubbock, TX 79409-1053
> "Only those whose life is short can truly believe that love is
forever"-Lorien
>