Dinosaur Genera List corrections #132

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

The following is excerpted, slightly edited, from an e-mail that arrived from 
Nick Longrich on 2/12/00:

"No, you probably haven't heard of it [Achillobator giganticus]. It's the 
recently named giant dromaeosaur from Mongolia (Perle, Norell, and Clark 
1999), published in an obscure place in Mongolia.

"Femur is 500 mm in length: a pretty big sucker. The sonovagun has a slightly 
*propubic* pelvis, and really narrow pubes- reminds me of tyrannosaur or 
ornithomimid or Coelurus pubes in that respect. As for anterior expansion of 
the pubic boot: It would put any self-respecting oviraptorid to shame. 
Positively to shame. And don't even get me started on the *proximally* 
situated obturator process and extremely long pubic apron (these characters 
are probably correlated).

"The paper suggests that it's related to Dromaeosaurus although I don't think 
the paper goes into much detail about why. It's got a pretty darn deep 
maxilla, too; this would have given the animal a vaguely Allosaurus-like 
profile I imagine. The ilium is weird; it is very deep and the posterior is 
enormously expanded.

"My first thought was, ?this can't be a dromaeosaur,' but it is. Posterior 
serrations on the teeth bigger than anterior ones, anteriorly forked 
chevrons, hyperelongate prezygs, killer-claw, a lot of medial closure to the 
acetabulum, big ol' posterolaterally located antitrochanter, sharp tip to the 
end of the the ilium, short anterior iliac blade with a big anterior notch, 
V-shaped ventral margin to the pubic peduncle. Most of the weird features are 
presumably derived relative to the other members of dromaeosauridae, one 
feature which is probably primitive is the small but undeniably present 
Proximodorsal Process of the ischium. It's supposed to be in Sinornithosaurus 
too if I recall, but it's easier to see here."

Naturally, I requested a citation, and learned that...

"   It was published in Mongolia.
    Pub info is something like:

----
    Perle, A., Norell, M., and Clark, J. 1999.
    A new maniraptoran Theropod- Achillobator giganticus
(Dromaeosauridae)- from the Upper Cretaceous of Burkhant, Mongolia.
    Contribution no. 101 of the Mongolian-American Paleontological Project.
    pp 1-105

    National University of Mongolia
        Printed in Mongolia 1999

    Contribution published by the Geology and Mineralogy Chair,
National University of Mongolia, is numbered consecutively as important
monograph and appears irregular intervals.

----

    mistakes are in the original, not mine."

...And then this post came privately 2/14/00 from Mark Norell:

"Now that the word is out on this animal, can...you post this on the dinosaur 
mailing list for us?

"We wrote an early draft of this paper with Perle with the intention of 
publishing it in American Museum Novitates.  This manuscript was published in 
Mongolia in an extremely preliminary form without the knowledge of the junior 
authors, and without a planned comparative analysis.  While much of the 
primary description represents our cumulative efforts, neither of us 
contributed to, or saw, the section labeled "Habits and affinities of 
Dromaeosurian Dinosaurs" before publication.

"Mark A. Norell and James M. Clark"

Consider it done.

But, despite the fiasco described in the preceding posts, we do have another 
name to add to the Dinosaur Genera List:

Achillobator Perle, Norell & Clark, 1999

as genus #877;

and to the list of Asiatic dinosaur species, we add

Achillobator Perle, Norell & Clark, 1999
    A. giganticus Perle, Norell & Clark, 1999?

This is, I believe, the same dinosaur that I first heard of about eight years 
ago (give or take a year) under the unpublished name Achillonychus. The 
latter name has not yet been published (and may never be), so it's not a 
candidate for the Dinosaur Genera List at this time.