Re: Triassic Sauropods

["T. Mike Keesey" <tmk@dinosauricon.com>]

On Fri, 6 Apr 2001, Tim Williams wrote:

> A Late Triassic age for the Isalo Group is given in :
>
> Flynn, J.J. et al. (1999).  A Triassic fauna from Madagascar, including
> early dinosaurs.  Science 286 (5440): 763-765.
>
> Abstract: "The discovery of a Middle to Late Triassic (apprx 225 to 230
> million years old) terrestrial vertebrate fauna from Madagascar is reported.
> This fauna documents a temporal interval not well represented by continental
> vertebrate assemblages elsewhere in the world. It contains two new
> prosauropod dinosaurs, representing some of the earliest dinosaur
> occurrences known globally. This assemblage provides information about the
> poorly understood transition to the dinosaur-dominated faunas."

This dating is based only on the faunal composition, right? Could it be
that Madagascar, then as now, preserved forms which had gone extinct on
the mainland? (Or was it an island at all back then?)

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