RE: Eustreptospondylus & Carcharodontosaurines, plus some humor

["Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu>]

> From: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu [mailto:owner-dinosaur@usc.edu]On Behalf Of
> Waylon Rowley
>
>       HP DR Thomas Holtz said the new juvenile
> Ceratosaurus nasicornis skull looks like a
> Eustreptospondylus with little horns. I believe he
> also suggested a new placement for Ceratosaurus? I
> don't know. I deleted that mail too hastily.

My SVP analysis this year, which includes data from this specimen, does
place _Ceratosaurus_ and the abelisauroids (Ceratosauria proper) as more
closely related to tetanurines than to coelophysoids.  This idea had been
previously proposed by, among others, Bakker and Paul, and is popping up in
a number of new analyses.

There was no particular affinity found between _Cerato._ and _Eustrept._,
but I did think it was interesting how similar those two specimens (both
juveniles) did appear.

>       Has anyone considered the phylogeny of
> "Wyomingraptor?" What happened to this dinosaur? Is it
> awaiting description?

It is still awaiting description.  The main form I would like to compare it
to is the large allosaurid material that Dan Chure named _Saurophaganax_.

Incidentally, your idea about the fluting of carcharodontosaurine teeth is
interesting, and perhaps pursuable via some sort of stress analysis.
However, it isn't necessarily that _Giganotosaurus_ had particularly narrow
teeth: they seem to plot allometrically along with other standard ziphodont
(bladelike teeth) with symmetrical carinae, at least in my limited data.
We'll have to see if HP Josh Smith looked into that particular aspect of
tooth morphology.

Finally, something a little more serious than Primal Dude's posting:
http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df200110/df20011016.jpg

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
                Vertebrate Paleontologist
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
                College Park, MD  20742
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/tholtz.htm
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796