Re: When dinos roamed

[christian farrell kammerer <cfkammer@midway.uchicago.edu>]

On Fri, 13 Jul 2001 Danvarner@aol.com wrote:
> In a message dated 7/13/01 7:31:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> NJPharris@aol.com writes:
>
> << I thought _Ichthyosaurus_ was
> European (though my knowledge of ichthyopterygian finds is dismal).  Is
> _Ichthyosaurus_ or any other ichthyopterygian known from Pacific Northwest
> North America? >>
>Oh, brother! See:
> http://www.rolexawards.com/laureates/laureate2.jsp?id=0042

There's a lot more to this site than just freakishly humongous
ichthyosaurs, too. There's actually a really amazing amount of
ichthyopterygian diversity present, with several genera already desribed
from the Sulphur Mountain and Pardonet formations (like the unusual
dwarf form Hudsonelpidia, the more typical Macgowania, and
"Shastasaurus" neoscapularis, most of them in old issues of
Can. J. Earth Sci.). In fact, a recent ichthyosaur paper in Neues Jahrbuch
by Maisch & Matzke (2001) has with good reason called Sulphur Mountain one
of the five major Middle Triassic ichthyosaur sites in existence, right up
there with the Prida of Nevada and the Monte Giorgio formation (and
incidentally, beating the pants off of the Muschelkalk for ichthyosaur
diversity and specimen preservation, if that means anything to you).

-Christian Kammerer