Re: Spines (Re: Texas dinos)

[Josh Smith <smithjb@sas.upenn.edu>]

Quoting M Mendez <blondgruve@yahoo.com>:

> I find Rauhut's theory to be fallacious. Stromer 1915 attributes the
> remains of a large theropod found near a hill to one individual. Mike
> was the first to share this with me, however, I think, morphogically,
> spines over six feet in height could not work on such large theropods
> as are carcharodontosauroids (especiallly such laterally compressed
> neural spines). Aside from that, Stromer figured the spines and the
> centra for Spinosaurus which show an almost circular centra rather
> than an ovalish one like the one in _Carcharodontosaurus_. (I think
> the fact that the neural spine and the centra are not fused (as shown
> in the figs.) suggest this individual was not fully mature.
> 

According to Stromer's diaries, there is no good reason at this time to 
suspect that the type of _Spinosaurus aegyptiacus_ came from multiple 
individuals or multiple taxa.  This individual was also very likely a 
subadult its true, but an adult _S. aegyptiacus_ was very likely very 
similar in size to an "average" sized individual of 
_Carcharodontosaurus_.

-J

----
Josh Smith
Department of Anthropology
Harvard University
18 Traymore Street
Cambridge, MA 02140
Office: 617.495.1966
Director, Bahariya Dinosaur Project http://egyptdinos.org

After 1 August:
Josh Smith
Assistant Professor of Geology
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
Washington University
Campus Box 1169
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Phone: 314-935-4258  FAX: 314-935-7361
smithjb@levee.wustl.edu
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