R: Masitisisauropus

["Alessandro Marisa" <amaris@tin.it>]

-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: Jerry D. Harris <LOKICORP@compuserve.com>
A: dinosaur@usc.edu <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Cc: Dinolist(message) <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Data: lunedì 6 settembre 1999 1.39
Oggetto: Masitisisauropus

>It's not an animal, it's an ichnotaxon -- a footprint name, not an
>animal name.  At any rate, the tongue-twisting ichnotaxon was considered
>the 4-digit manus print of a web-footed, three-toed footprint from the Late
>Triassic/Early Jurassic of Lesotho (southern Africa) named by Ellenberger
>in '74.  See:
>Ellenberger, P.  1972.  Contribution a la classification des pistes de
>vertebres du Trias:  les types du Stormberg d'Afrique du Sud (I).
>_Palaeovertebrata Memoire Extraordinaire 1972 Montpellier_: 1-134.
>Ellenberger, P.  1974.  Contribution a la classification des pistes de
>vertebres du Trias:  les types du Stormberg d'Afrique du Sud (II).
>_Palaeovertebrata Memoire Extraordinaire 1974 Montpellier_: 1-147.
>Ellenberger was a notorious ichnotaxonomic splitter, and a lot of the
>ichnogenera he created have been sunk into existing forms -- everytime a
>particular ichnotaxon changed morphology, even slightly, due to substrate
>differences, etc., it got a new name -- a practice no one in ichnology of
>which I'm aware does anymore.  Ellenberger claimed the print was surrounded
>by elongate, roughly radially distributed impressions, which he claimed
>were feather impressions.  (It was never clear to me why, if he thought it
>was the print of a bird, it had 4 digits and was ambulating
>quadrupedally...)  Anyway, the "impressions" are completely invisible in
>the photos in the monograph on the Lesotho prints, and the few people I've
>heard who ever saw the prints say that there _are_ no impressions.  Along
>this line, one must also keep in mind that Ellenberger is also the
>individual who named and originally described _Cosesaurus_ as an avian
>ancestor, and he originally described _that_ fossil as being surrounded by
>feather impressions, too, although that didn't hold up under further
>scrutiny.  See:

There are any evidence that these ichnotaxon can be referred to the
ichnogenus Atreipus?

By
Alessandro Marisa
"Volunteer of Paleontological Museum of Monfalcone"
Via Achille Grandi n°18
38068 ROVERETO (TN) ITALY
Tel: 039-0464-434658 Email: amaris@tin.it