Dinosaur Genera List corrections #174

[Dinogeorge@aol.com]

The trip to the SVP meeting at Bozeman was quite pleasant, and it brought 
along with it a new dinosaur name to the Genera List. Tracy Ford and I 
stopped to visit the North American Museum of Ancient Life at Lehi, Utah on 
the way back to San Diego. That's where this new dinosaur name comes from:

Tanycolagreus [Anonymous] 2001 [nomen nudum; in North American Museum of 
Ancient Life guidebook]

Published in two guidebooks to the museum (I don't know which appeared 
first), this becomes generic name #925 in the List. A museum label (which is 
not a publication) attributes the name to Kenneth Carpenter and Clifford 
Miles as of May 1, 2001 and even provides the name of the type species, 
Tanycolagreus topwilsoni, but since this information is not yet published 
anywhere I know of, I cannot yet include it in the forthcoming second 
printing of Mesozoic Meanderings #3. The dinosaur is a coelurid from the Bone 
Cabin Quarry, Morrison Formation, Upper Jurassic of Wyoming, collected in 
1999 (if I recall correctly) by "Top" Wilson.

The same guidebooks (more a "guide pamphlet") provide an earlier spelling of 
the name Hesperosaurus, namely, Hesperisaurus, which evidently explains why 
that spelling appeared on the Dinosaur Mailing List a while back.

Pterosaur enthusiasts should note that the museum also features a new 
Morrison rhamphorhynchoid, Harpactognathus gentryi, on display. The name is 
as yet unpublished as far as I know. It is said to be similar to Scaphognathus
.

The museum has lots of dinosaur skeletons on display, almost all casts, and 
is well worth stopping to visit if you happen to be in the Provo, Utah area. 
It's just off Interstate 15 South. For details, visit their website

www.dinosaurpoint.com

Another correction concerns the name "Colossosaurus", which I added to the 
List in DGL correction #166. Ralph Molnar suggested that there was an earlier 
appearance of this name than what I had listed, so I began searching 
available references in my library and turned the name up in Dennis R. Dean's 
1999 book Gideon Mantell and the Discovery of Dinosaurs, pp. 237 and 239 
(footnote). So the listing is corrected to:

Colossosaurus Mantell, 1849 vide Dean, 1999 [nomen nudum => Pelorosaurus]

Mantell used the name as early as November 4, 1849 but was persuaded to 
change it about a week later to Pelorosaurus by the Reverend Charles 
Pritchard, whose letter to Mantell is quoted in the book: "The word Colossus 
signifies simply a statue...Although therefore the word Colossosaurus might 
be indulgently accepted, it would after all...mean only the Statuesaurus. 
Now, there is a Greek word, and a well known one, Pelor, signifying "monster" 
and as such it is applied more than once by Homer to the monstrous 
Cyclops...If you call your beast Pelorosaurus, you will mean the monster 
lizard and to all classical scholars will convey the idea of something 
unusually gigantic." Note that "Statuesaurus" is not a real dinosaur name but 
simply the partial translation of the name Colossosaurus into English, so it 
doesn't go into the Dinosaur Genera List.

There may yet turn up an earlier reference to Colossosaurus. Dean's book is 
thoroughly researched and quite fascinating. Highly recommended.

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