Return from SVPCA

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

Hello. Returned recently from the 51st SVPCA, held this 
year at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, 
Oxford. Great fun and much stuff of interest on basal 
tetrapods, lissamphibians, marine reptiles, pterosaurs, 
dinosaurs and even mammals. Highlights include the new 
high strangeness of _Ichthyostega_ revealed by Per 
Ahlberg; the tiny tiny Thai theropod embryos announced by 
Eric Buffetaut; Angela Milner, Patricio Dominguez-Alonso 
et al's new 3-D scans of the _Archaeopteryx_ braincase; and 
the total power failure during the penultimate session of the 
last day. Alas don't have time now to do a proper writeup 
but will try and do so next week. 

Yes Lorna Steel (and Dave Unwin) did talk about the new 
Isle of Wight ornithocheirid, Sanchez-Villagra et al. did 
announce their new data on _Phoberomys_, and yes the 
stories about me and Martill's hat are true. And talking of 
Martill, the reason _Big Monster Dig_ is no longer showing 
on Channel 4 is because it's been 'rescheduled': viewing 
figures weren't good enough.

Moving on, I don't know if the following have been 
announced but they are out...

Moser, M. 2003. _Plateosaurus engelhardti_ Meyer, 1837 
(Dinosauria: Sauropodomorpha) aus dem Feuerletten 
(Mittelkeuper; Obertrias) von Bayern. _Zitteliana_ B 24, 3-
186.

Rauhut, O. W. M. 2003. A tyrannosauroid dinosaur from 
the Upper Jurassic of Portugal. _Palaeontology_ 46, 903-
910.

The latter describes the new taxon _Aviatyrannis jurassica_ 
(which means 'tyrant's grandmother from the Jurassic').

-- 
Darren Naish
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences
University of Portsmouth UK, PO1 3QL

email: darren.naish@port.ac.uk
tel: 023 92846045