SVP review (the short version)

["Rob Gay" <rob_redwing@hotmail.com>]

Whelp y'all, I'm back from the long trek/drive that was the trip to 
SVP...many hours on the road: anyhow, that's not what I'm here to talk 
about...here's my thoughts on the first SVP that I've been to...I'll 
summarize the high points, since I'm sure others out there will do the same, 
but somewhat more detailed.
High point one: new specimen of _Sinornithosaurus_, showing true, 
rachis-bearing feathers, including on the arms, and a 10 inch long feathery 
extention of the end of the tail!
Also very cool (to me at least) was a talk on sexual dimorphism in 
phytosaurs (I know they're not dinosaurs, but they're Triassic, archosaurs, 
and cool).
Also, there was the announcment of two new specimens of _Microraptor_, along 
with a new large theropod (unfortunately, this one was cobbled together 
badly by local farmers, with all kinds of pieces in the wrong places. It's 
big though!)
HP Yates gave a very cool talk on the prosauropod dinosaur 
_Thecodontosaurus_, including mention of a possible new species of this 
animal. Also, the addition of this animal made prosauropoda paraphylectic, 
and showed prosauropods branching off along the main line to neosauropoda.
HP Holtz gave a talk on tyrannosaur phylogeny, which was very interesting, 
and placed them closer to ornithomimosaurs than any other group. It also 
found ceratosaurs to be paraphyletic, which is of great intrest to me.
Another first rate talk was about the vertical running origin of flight 
theory...wow, there was more appluase for this talk than any other...it was 
really astounding in my opinion.
Also among good talks was Hans-Dieter Sues talk on _Longisquama_...blatantly 
stating that (as the title suggested) that _Longisquama_ does not have 
feathers. He demonstrated the structures were hollow, 3D structures in life, 
and when the animal dies, the vanes collapsed and infilled with sediment. 
The filaments proposed by ABSRDers were wrinkles caused by the colapse of 
the structure.
There was a talk on pterosaur breathing, that concluded that pterosaurs must 
have used a hepatic piston system to breath, due to immobilization of the 
thoracic region. However, Kevin Padian presented two problems to this: that 
there was no phylogenetic backing for placement of musles on the prepubis, 
and that there is movement between the sacrum and the thorax, allowing that 
to function as a bellows system.
HP Smith reported on a new small theropod from his site in Egypt, and a 
method of carefully measuring tooth morphology to aid in higher order 
phylogentic determination (which is really really interesting to me, I'd 
like to learn more about it).
HP Chapman did a very interesting talk about the new _Triceratops_ mount.
There were many many more good talks, and the posters I was able to see (not 
too many, since I spent most of my time hanging out by mine) were very cool 
too.
The vendors had some great stuff, including our own dinolisters here.
Other high points, quickly, since I need to go do homework. The dinolist 
breakfast was great, it was awesome to meet and greet a number of the 
faceless names on here ;). The auction too, was high paced fun, with HP 
Chapman providing some of the auctioneer's humor...
One thing I was disappointed in was the last talk I saw (right before lunch 
on Saturday). It was more of a commercial, it seemed to me...maybe on own 
thoughts though...
Finally, in closing, I'd like to appologize for the incompleteness here. 
Everything I wrote down is in another room, so I'm sorry that I haven't 
really touched on the dental battery of _Nigersaurus_, or the neat stuff 
from the bone histology session. It was awesome, and I'll see you all in 
Norman, Oklahoma, next year!
Peace,
Rob

Student of Geology
Northern Arizona University
P.O. Box 20840
Flagstaff, Az. 86011
AIM: TarryAGoat
http://www.geocities.com/elvisimposter/dinopics.html
http://www.cafepress.com/RobsDinos
"A _Coelophysis_ with feathers?"


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