confusing crests and ?Cyprusians

["John R. Hutchinson" <jrhutch@socrates.berkeley.edu>]

Title: confusing crests and ?Cyprusians

Two replies to posts:

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Oops, nomenclatural confusion arises.  Good reason why.  The tibiofibular crest (of the distal femur) in birds is a different structure from the fibular crest (of the tibial shaft; and associated structures) that is present in theropods (including birds).  The former structure has only been commented on by paleontologists and a few ornithologists.  The latter structure is what Muller (and Streicher) published 5+ papers on in scattered journals/books from 1985-1992ish.   Zimmer's book is "At the Water's Edge," IIRC.

"Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 17:00:40 PST

From: "Matthew Bonnan" <mbonnan@hotmail.com>
To: dinosaur@usc.edu
Subject: Re: tibiofibular crests
Message-ID: <20000215010040.20295.qmail@hotmail.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed

For a functional perspective on the tibiofibular crest, check out:

G. B. Muller. 1990. Developmental mechanisms: a side-effect hypothesis; in M. H. Niteki (Ed.), Evolutionary Innovations.

For a popular account, read Carl Zimmer's excellent little book ... whose name I now forget!  Arrg!  Anyway, it is something like: Fish With Fingers and Mammals with Fins, or some such derivation.  If someone on the list knows, please post.  It is an excellent book.

Later for now,

Matt Bonnan"

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I figured that these guys had circulated this e-mail around the globe, given the form letter.  I got the message a few weeks ago and had a brief conversation with the SBZs.   I don't see anything that is clearly fossil in those pics; looks like mudstone or something (my non-geological background is evident).  They wanted a voucher or something verifying that these are fossils (no, I did not oblige).

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 23:45:21 -0500
From: "TRUETT GARNER" <DINOBOY@worldnet.att.net>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Subject: unknown animal ?
Message-ID: <20000215045426.DHFN2478@fpfzqlga>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
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Has anyone on the list heard of S.B.Z. Investments Group , from Nicosia,
Cyprus ? Particularly a Dr.Oleg V. Pyntikov ? I received an email with a
zip file attachment from these people , asking if I could identify the
remains in the photos on the zip file . Haven't opened the zip yet . I'm a
bit
suspicious .... why ask a paleoartist to identify fossils , when you have
paleontologists to do so ? Please reply off-list . Meanwhile , I'm going to

think about opening the zip file  .
Regards ,

Truett Garner

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John R. Hutchinson
Department of Integrative Biology                Phone:  (510) 643-2109
3060 Valley Life Sciences Bldg.                   Fax:    (510) 642-1822
University of California 
Berkeley, CA 94720-3140
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/people/jrh/homepage.html