Re: Back from the NHM (Jehol dinosaurs)

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

HP H. P. Bredow wrote... 
 
> Perhaps you mean the "Fossil Treasures from China" at the 
> Fuhlrott-Museum in Wuppertal/Germany last year. 
 
Yes. 
 
> I have seen the Munich specimen of Archaeopteryx (bavaricus), 
 
I didn't count the feather, so *A. bavarica* is the 7th. AFAIK preparation 
of the 8th is not finished. 
 
> But the other basal coelurosaur? What's this? 
 
"Basal coelurosaur" may well be nonsense. In fact I don't even know if 
it's a _dino_saur, although it actually can't be anything else. 
        bild der wissenschaft 12/1999, p. 19 says that the same 
Klaus-Dieter Weiß who found Borsti in 1998 found "a second fossil of a 
land *.saur from the Jurassic" in 1999. It's waiting for preparation, and 
Weiß won't tell where yet. 
        Weiß possesses the biggest collection of fossil fishes in Europe 
-- 30,000 specimens. 
 
This is all I know about it. I haven't read anything more. Borsti is not 
kept so secret: 
 
Pino Völkl: Sensationeller Saurierfund, Der Präparator 45(4), 145 -- 150 
 
English summary [still better than the French one]: 
"A new, well preserved specimen of a small Theropod [sic] from the Upper 
Jurassic Solnhofen limestone of Bavaria is described and figured. Until 
now only the skull has been prepared. Many palaeontologists are of the 
opinion that the birds have evolved from the theropod dinosaurs. For this 
reason the new discovery is of great scientific importance. This specimen 
is housed in the Jura-Museum of Eichstätt." 
 
Includes a photo of the 8 cm long skull; I've seen better ones. The skull 
of *Compsognathus longipes* -- but probably only of the Solnhofen specimen 
which isn't fully grown -- is 7 cm long, has in comparison much smaller 
teeth. Borsti is thought to be juvenile because the bones are porous, 
don't show much fusion and the orbit is large. Apparently only the first 
pmx tooth is unserrated. The sediment is strongly silicified -- = damn 
hard -- and hard to tell apart from the bones. 

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