Oviraptors and Pygostyles

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

  Just got my copy of the paper, and the full citation
is as follows:

  Barsbold R.; Currie, P.J.; Myhrvold, N.P.; Osmólska,
H.; Tsogtbaatar K.; and Watabe M. 2000. A pygostyle
from a non-avian theropod. _Nature_ 403: 155-156.

  Please, names are properly cited here, without
commas in the primary and last two authors.

Erratum:

  The citation for ref. 2 should read:

  "Currie, P. J. & Russell, D. A. _Can. J. Earth Sci._
25: 972-986 (1988)." not "... (1998)."

Comments:

  It's a "Brief Communication" so you can't expect too
much out of it. Barsbold and others are saving the
full description for an upcoming paper, so ... it is a
new animal, that's for sure, there are about four
autapomorphies related solely to the tail as
detirmined from the _Nature_ and the _Nat. Geo._
papers, from the illustrations; some more are related
to the femur, the pelvis, and dorsal vertebrae. It is
good to have finally a short comparative analysis of
caudals for oviraptorosaurs, though not complete; ovi
tails are the least described portion of these
animals, despite several specimens (including
*Conchoraptor* and *"Oviraptor" mongoliensis*)
including these. While suggested with caenagnathid
affinities, the only evidence presented for this is
the shape of the ilium, and in this respect,
*Oviraptor* and "Rinchenia" are closer in shape than
the new taxon, specimen # GIN 940824 {all caudal
vertebrae (26, with 20-26 appressed and/or fused),
haemal arches for vertebrae 1-18 and 21-22, most
dorsal and cervical vertebrae, multiple ribs, he
pelvis and sacrum, the left femur but both tibiae and
fibulae, no pes (contra Sloan, 1999, in the
illustration)} contra Barsbold et al. (2000), though
the nearly vertical distal half of the ischium is more
similar to *Chirostenotes* (Makovicky and Sues, 1997)
so I'm sure a more extensive analysis will clarify
this. Personally, I do not think it is an
"oviraptoroid," but that is based on unpublished data.

  Not to put down Mike Skrepnick's skill and wonderful
vision as an artist, but putting the skull of GIN
100/42 on the body of GIN 940824 was an "interesting"
idea. More caenagnathid-like, personally, would have
been preferable, but, hey, that's me.

 My $.02 worth, though certainly much more than that,


=====
Jaime "James" A. Headden

"Come the path that leads us to our fortune."

Qilong---is temporarily out of service.
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