Re: "Aniksosaurus darwini"

[Josh Smith <smithjb@sas.upenn.edu>]

João Simões Lopes Filho wrote:

> There's no Sarmiento in Brazil. The name is Spanish, must be
> Argentina. Joao SLRio de Janeiro
>
>      ----- Original Message -----
>      From: Mickey_Mortimer
>      To: dinosaur@usc.edu
>      Sent: Friday, January 19, 2001 2:23 AM
>      Subject: "Aniksosaurus darwini"
>       Hey everyone.  Dug up some new info today on our favorite
>      obscure theropod "Aniksosaurus".  On the website
>      http://www.tierraaustral.com/informacion/nota_paleo.htm , I
>      found the following (in badly translated Spanish, courtesy
>      of Altavista)- To the listing of discoveries that was added,
>      in 1995, aniksosaurus darwini 130 kilómertos to the north of
>      Sarmiento. Martinez said that " the anatomy of these fossils
>      does not call so much to the attention. It seems great
>      dinosaurio carnivorous but dwarfed. What would be possible
>      is that outside a species located near the base of the great
>      group of dinosaurios that in the long run went to give
>      origin to the birds. This animal would be tetanuro but it
>      would have a series of characteristics that already
>      preanunican to the evolved group more ". This gives us some
>      new information regarding "Aniksosaurus".  First, we have a
>      species name, "A. darwini".  Second, we have a location- 130
>      km north of Sarmiento, Brazil.  Third, we can guess the
>      formation.  What other species is described in the article
>      as having been found 130 km north of Sarmiento?
>      Notohypsilophodon comodorensis, which was found in the Bajo
>      Barreal Formation.  What else is mentioned in the article?
>      Xenotarsosaurus bonapartei, Epachtosaurus scuttoi and a
>      titanosauriform skull, all from the same formation.  Thus, I
>      conclude "Aniksosaurus" was found in that formation as
>      well.  What else do we know?  It's a tetanuran and "near the
>      base of the great group of dinosaurios that in the long run
>      went to give origin to the birds".  This sounds suspiciously
>      like "basal coelurosaur" to me.  Finally, the real link to
>      official data.  Are there tetanurans known from the Bajo
>      Barreal Formation already?  There are two, a Megaraptor
>      relative (Martinez, Lamanna, Smith, Casal and Luna 1999) and
>      a basal coelurosaur (Martinez and Novas 1997).  Guess which
>      I think "Aniksosaurus" is.  So, for further information on
>      "Aniksosaurus", read Martinez and Novas (1997), which can be
>      found translated on Polyglot.  Finally, some concrete
>      information on this nomen nudum.
>
    _Aniksosaurus_ is not the same as our putative "megaraptorid."
Sarmiento is in Chubut Province, Argentina.  _Aniksosaurus_ comes from
the lower part of the Bajo Barreal Formation which has a moderately
solid Cenomanian-Turonian age (somewhere around 94 Ma) currently
assigned to it.  The quarries are more or less 120-130 km north of the
town.  _Anikosaurus_ IS probably a basal coelurosaur but we don't know
all that much about it yet.

-Josh
--
Josh Smith
Department of Earth and Environmental Science
University of Pennsylvania
471 Hayden Hall
240 South 33rd Street
Philadelphia, PA  19104-6316
(215) 898-5630 (Office)
(215) 898-0964 (FAX)