Re: Texas dinos

["T. Michael Keesey" <mightyodinn@yahoo.com>]

--- M Mendez <blondgruve@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> --- Acrocanthosaurus@aol.com wrote:
> > how closely related is the Pluerocoelus to the
> > Astrodon and the Africian 
> > dinosaur Malawisaurus?And is the Acrocanthosaurus
> > more closely related to 
> > Spinosaurus or Allosaurus?
> 
> _Acrocanthosaurus_ itself is closer to _Allosaurus_
> and even _Carcharodontosaurus_. Although the spines
> might be misleading, the vertebrae are different from
> that of Spinosaurids.
> In his 1999 Evolution of Dinosaurs paper, Sereno
> illustrates this relationship:
> 
> Allosauroidea
> ----Other allosauroids
>   \-Acrocanthosaurus
>    \-Giganotosaurus
>     \_Carcharodontosaurus
> 
> hope this helps.

I think some have also placed _Acrocanthosaurus_ closer to _Allosaurus_ than to
the carcharodontosaurines, but it's not a terribly different placement, and
_Acrocanthosaurus_ is still much closer to _Allosaurus_ than to _Spinosaurus_.
Didn't Rauhut suggest that _Spinosaurus_ might be chimerical? Even so, I think
the same would hold, right?

> BTW, my sauropod phylogeny is notbad or good. Mike
> Keesey most likely knows.

Heh, thanks, but there's certainly people on this list more well-versed than me
in the often-confusing area of titanosaurian systematics. I think _Alamosaurus_
and _Malawisaurus_ are supposed to be roughly in the same "area" of the tree,
along with _Aeolosaurus_, _Antarctosaurus_, _Argyrosaurus_, _Gondwanatitan_,
_Laplatasaurus_, _Titanosaurus_, and perhaps _Nemegtosauridae_ -- fairly
derived, but outside _Saltasauridae_.

http://dinosauricon.com/taxa/titanosauria.html
http://dinosauricon.com/taxa/allosauridae.html
http://dinosauricon.com/taxa/carnosauria.html
http://dinosauricon.com/taxa/tetanurae.html
http://dinosauricon.com/taxa/spinosauria.html

=====
=====> T. Michael Keesey <keesey@bigfoot.com>
=====> The Dinosauricon <http://dinosauricon.com>
=====> BloodySteak <http://bloodysteak.com>
=====> Instant Messenger <Ric Blayze>
=====

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