RE: Sarcosuchus (IN ITALY)

[rallain@cimrs1.mnhn.fr (ALLAIN Ronan)]

>I may be completely wrong, but I remember a large
><crocodile/crocodiliform/something on display at the Natural History
>Museum in <Paris.  Of course, when I visited I was operating on 30+ hours
>of non-sleep, so <I may just be mixing up my facts.  Does anyone know
>about this possible <specimen?  Based on Dr. Dalla Vecchia's above post,
>French and Italian teams <discovered the material currently on display in
>Venice, so it is conceivable <that perhaps a French team from the Museum
>may have collected the specimen that <(I think) is on display.

Indeed, a complete skull of Sarcosuchus (170 cm long), with at least 40
dermal plates, and several vertebrae are on display in Paris (see Taquet,
1976: Géologie et Paléontologie du gisement de Gadoufaoua) for one year. I
think that a paper on this specimen is currently in progress.

Ronan

********************************
Ronan ALLAIN

Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle
Laboratoire de Paleontologie
8 rue Buffon
75005 PARIS

Tel: 0140793042
Fax: 0140793580
E-mail: rallain@mnhn.fr
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