Re: Dermal coverings

["Matthew Troutman" <m_troutman@hotmail.com>]

<<Can no longer allow the hypothesis get in the way of the facts.>>

Preach on Brother Geroge!  How refreshing.

<<By the way, this doesn't nullify my opinion that ornithischians are more 
closely related to sauropods and prosauropods than they are to theropods (so 
that Saurischia = Dinosauria); only that segnosaurs aren't descended from 
the still-hypothetical intermediate forms connecting sauropodomorphs and 
ornithischians. Also doesn't nullify my opinion that the description of the 
Erlikosaurus skull is full of pesky and misleading little errors, such as 
conflating parasphenoid and basisphenoid, and asserting that only theropods 
have interdental plates when this feature is manifest in many prosauropods. 
Or that Beipiaosaurus is some kind of segnosaur (case >not< well made in 
that paper, but comparison with the Utah specimens should finally establish 
this).
Nothing I read in the literature was nearly as convincing as simply handling 
and examining the new specimens.>>

_Beipiaosaurus_ certainly is interesting, and I think it probably is a basal 
therizinosaur still.  The paper did need a better description of the skull.  
I am sure that we all are looking forward to a comprehensive cladistic 
analysis encompassing _Sinosauropteryx_, Protarchaeopteryx_, _Caudipteryx_, 
_Beipiaosaurus_, the new Utah therizinosaur, dromaeosaurs, troodontids, 
oviraptorosaurs, tyrannosaurs, and basal birds.  What a study that would be.

Matt Troutman
m_troutman@hotmail.com

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