Re: Irritator

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

Mike Keesey wrote:

<<So it has no crest or it doesn't have a big crest?
Or is it unknown?>>

and Nick Pharris wrote:
 
<I'm going out on a limb here, so I hope I remember it
right. There is no crest atop the braincase (what had
been interpreted as a big sagittal crest turned out to
be a stray bit of bone from somewhere else), but there
still may be a nasal crest over the snout...can't
remember clearly enough to be sure.>

  Not published in the JVP abscracts volume (Sues et
al., 1999), but from what Martill presented in the
program session, there is a sagittal crest, but it is
of the _typical_ spinosaurid form, being narrow,
"comb-like" as in many pterosaurs and baryonychines,
with a posterior pyramidal terminus, as in
baryonychines (see Sereno et al., 1998; Kellner and
Campos, 1996 for descriptions of this in spinosaurs).
The large sagittal crest previously illustrated
(Martill and Frey, 1996) was in fact a portion of the
right maxilla extended posteriorly; the right side of
the skull is extensively damaged except nearer the
occiput, where it is even better preserved than the
left, illustrated side (excellent slides!) so there is
better resolution on the temporal region and the skull
is, but for the extraordinary snout, rather typical
for the spinosaurids (conf. Charig and Milner, 1986,
1990, 1997; Sereno et al., 1998; Stromer, 1932; Glut,
1997, and Molnar et al., 1990, are good for the other
"spinosaur" taxa and material), and the posterior
maxillary teeth were transported and actually belong
to the right maxilla! Nothing else but more detailed
stuff that I'd have to pull my notes out to recall
better, plus there's the mono. on the skull when it
gets finished ...  but that's a little down the road.
Excellent talk, though, one of the real interesting
ones that I was expecting; the room was packed, for
that last day of talks on dinos, there were around
thirty people in the back standing, and over two
hundred seated, so I rather think it was fun.


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

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

Qilong---is temporarily out of service.
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