RE: Psittacosaurus bristle article in Naturwissenschaften online

["Steve Brusatte" <dinoland@lycos.com>]

On Thu, 18 Jul 2002 20:12:05  
 Tracy L. Ford wrote:
>How many described Psittacosaurus specimens have the ossified tendons? I
>don't recall seeing any 'Liaoning' specimens with them. Sure small patches
>of skin impressions, but not the tendons. Glad to see the paper is finally
>out though.

Interesting observation.  _Psittacosaurus meileyingensis_, which comes from 
Liaoning (Jiufotang, not Yixian) does not preserve any dorsal vertebrae, but 
its caudal vertebrae show no sign of ossified tendons.  Of course, considering 
that _P. xinjiangensis_ is the only known psittacosaurid to possess the tendons 
along its caudals, this doesn't necessarily mean much.

_Psittacosaurus_ sp., described by Xu and Wang (1998) from the lower part of 
the Yixian has only a few presacrals preserved, but there does appear to be a 
few ossified tendons near the ilium (personal observation...so I could be 
wrong).  This is supposidely a "primitive" psittacosaurid based on its weak 
jugal horns, but as of yet it has not been given its own species name.  Perhaps 
this is _P. lengi_ that Alessandro Marisa mentioned?  

Other than that, _P. mongoliensis_, _P. sinensis_, and _P. youngi_ do have the 
tendons preserved.  They are also apparently present in  _P. neimongoliensis_, 
but the authors are somewhat confusing in that regard.  

Steve

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