WHAT are segnosaurs?

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

Mickey,
     Thank you for testing a null hypothesis.  But I suspect that 
similarities between prosauropods and therizinosaurs are going to turn out 
to be plesiomorphic, and therefore rather tenuous and unconvincing.
     What I envision is therizinosaurs as stem tetanurans (perhaps small 
unknown primitive forms being stem neotheropods), and eventually grading 
into primitive coelurosaurs and even primitive bullatosaurs (ornithomimids 
and troodontids).
      Therefore instead of comparing therizinosaurs to prosauropods, it 
might be more interesting to compare them to Guaibasuarids, Coelophysids, 
Sinraptorids, and/or basal coelurosaurs such as Ornitholestes.  I suspect 
that Beipaiosaurus may be a rather advanced therizinosaurian (whether the 
latter is a paraphyletic group or polyphyletic).
     If therizinosaurs (as now envisioned) are actually polyphyletic or 
even highly paraphyletic, splitting them into a number of separate OTUs may 
become necessary (but then the fragmentary nature of most forms would become 
extremely problematic).  But I would especially like to see some concerted 
attempts to compare various therizinosaurians particularly with sinraptors 
and primitive coelurosaurs (as opposed to prosauropods which are probably 
more primitive).
                Just a suggestion,
                                 Ken Kinman
*******************************************************
> From: "Mickey Mortimer" <Mickey_Mortimer11@msn.com>
> Reply-To: Mickey_Mortimer11@msn.com
> To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
> Subject: Re: maxillary fenestration & WHAT are "segnosaurs"?
> Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 21:02:50 -0700
>
> Tracy Ford wrote-
>
> > 2) I have no problem with the jaw being a therizinosaurid, its the rest 
> of
> > the skeleton that I have a problem with. The jaw is to small to go with
> the
> > skeleton (as I've said numerous times on the list).
>
> I'm preparing a big list of theropod characters present in segnosaurs and
> going to put segnosaurs in a prosauropod matrix, but until then....
> As I wrote before-
> Strange that the skull would be too small when the authors state the 
> dentary
> is 65% of femoral length, which they point out is larger than other
> segnosaurs.
> How can the skull be too small in this case?
>
> Mickey Mortimer
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com